Federal election

Eligible to vote are

all Germans within the meaning of Article 116 Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law who, on election day

• have reached the age of 18
• have lived in the Federal Republic of Germany for at least three months or are otherwise ordinarily resident there and
• are not excluded from the right to vote.

Germans within the meaning of Article 116 Paragraph 1 of the Basic Law who live outside the Federal Republic of Germany (so-called Germans living abroad) are also entitled to vote, provided that they

• have lived or otherwise habitually resided in the Federal Republic of Germany for at least three months without interruption after reaching the age of fourteen and this residence was no longer than 25 years ago, or
• have acquired personal and direct familiarity with the political situation in the Federal Republic of Germany for other reasons and are affected by it.

Citizens of the other member states of the European Union (EU citizens) and foreign citizens living in the Federal Republic of Germany are not eligible to vote in the Bundestag election.

All eligible voters whose main place of residence is registered in Offenburg (deadline: 42nd day before the election) and who meet the requirements for eligibility to vote are automatically entered in the voters’ register of the City of Offenburg. Based on this entry in the voters’ register, voter notifications will be sent out in due course (at the latest on the 21st day before the election).

If you have not received a voter’s notification by this time, you should contact your polling station to check whether you have been properly entered on the electoral roll.

Germans who live abroad and are not registered in Germany are so-called foreign Germans. You are not automatically entered in a voters’ register. In this case, too, only those who are registered on the electoral roll can vote.

If Germans living abroad wish to take part in the Bundestag elections, they must submit a written application for entry in the electoral roll to their last German municipality of residence. The application must be submitted to the municipal electoral office within a prescribed period (21 days before the election). The application also serves as an application for a polling card.

Care must be taken to submit the application for inclusion in the electoral roll in good time and to apply for postal voting documents at the same time.

Detailed information and the application form for entry in the voters’ register can be found on the website of the Federal Returning Officer under the following link Germans abroad – The Federal Returning Officer

The German Bundestag is elected according to the principle of “personalized proportional representation”. Each voter has two votes:

First vote:

The first vote is cast on the left-hand side of the ballot paper.

The first vote is used to elect a single person from a number of constituency candidates. From the 2025 Bundestag election onwards, there will no longer be direct mandates. A constituency candidate of a party wins a constituency seat if he or she has received the most first votes in the constituency and this seat is also covered by second votes (so-called second vote cover). An individual candidate receives a constituency seat if he or she receives the most votes.

Second vote:

The second vote is cast on the right-hand side of the ballot paper.

The second vote is used to vote for a party’s electoral list. The respective second vote shares of the various parties determine the distribution of seats in the Bundestag in accordance with the proportional representation system, which means, for example: If party A receives 20% of the second votes nationwide, party A also receives 20% of the seats in the Bundestag. The second votes of a party are only taken into account for the distribution of seats if the party has received at least 5% of the second votes awarded nationwide (“five percent clause”).

The second vote shares of the individual parties are decisive for the composition of the Bundestag and will become even more important after the electoral law reform.

Electoral law reform 2023:

In accordance with the electoral law reform adopted in 2023, the size of the Bundestag will be limited to 630 MPs in future. The previous rules on overhang and compensatory seats will no longer apply. Only the results of the second vote will then be decisive for the distribution of seats in the Bundestag, i.e. if party A receives 20% of the second vote, party A will also receive 20% of the seats, regardless of whether it would be entitled to more or fewer seats according to the first vote results. The winning direct candidates of the first vote therefore no longer automatically receive a direct mandate, but only if their mandate is secured by the party result of the second vote.