General elections are held in Germany every four years. The electoral system, under which voters will on Sunday designate a parliament, will in turn elect a chancellor. It is called a system of personalised proportional representation. Each voter has two votes with which to help determine the outcome of the election of the 656 seats of the Bundestag (parliament).
The first serves for the direct election of candidates standing in constituency seats, the winner being determined by a relative majority. One half of the parliamentary seats, that is 328 seats, are allocated in this way.
The second vote is given to a state list of candidates drawn up by the parties in the 16 federal states. After counting of the votes, the remaining 328 seats are distributed among the parties in proportion to the number of votes cast for their list in accordance with the so-called Niemeyer method. These are called list seats.
The number of constituency seats obtained by the party is then deducted from the number of list seats established by the Niemeyer method, and the remainder are given to the candidates in the order in which they appear on their respective lists.
A ruling designed to avoid the proliferation of small parties stipulates that only parties which have won at least 5 per cent of the votes or won more than three constituency seats can enter parliament.