Federal Constitutional Court: Urgent motion against electoral reform rejected

The opposition factions of the FDP, Greens and Left have failed in Karlsruhe with their urgent motion against the electoral reform. The new regulation therefore already applies to the upcoming federal election.

The new electoral law already applies to the federal election on September 26th. The Federal Constitutional Court rejected an urgent motion by the parliamentary groups of the FDP, the Left and the Greens against the new rules on the allocation of seats that were adopted in autumn 2020.

As the court in Karlsruhe announced, it wants to examine the reform carefully in the main proceedings. The judges may see problematic points.

Dispute over reform

The parties basically agree that the Bundestag, which has grown to 709 seats, must be made smaller again. A large parliament not only costs taxpayers more money, it is also less able to work. But the right way to get there has been argued for years. A compromise solution, which all parties wanted to support, had not come about in two electoral terms.

In October 2020, the Union and the SPD had finally decided to change the electoral law on their own. Accordingly, up to three overhang mandates should no longer be compensated. The FDP, the Left and the Greens consider this to be a violation of equal opportunities for the parties and equal voting rights. In addition, the regulations are so imprecise that the requirement of clarity of the norms is violated, they criticize.

No effect on voting

They had jointly presented an alternative draft that only provided for 250 constituencies, but could not prevail. In February they submitted a so-called norm control application in Karlsruhe and at the same time the application for an urgent decision.

Now the court only decided on the urgent application, i.e. a provisional regulation. This refused it: the reasons that spoke in favor of an interim order did not justify the “associated interference with the jurisdiction of the legislature”, it explained. The regulatory review request of the three parliamentary groups was neither inadmissible from the outset, nor was it obviously unfounded. Whether the new right to vote is compatible with the Basic Law will therefore be examined later in the main proceedings.

The Karlsruhe procedure and the now published urgent decision of July 20 have no direct impact on the voting of the citizens. It’s about the rules according to which the votes cast are converted into mandates.