How the election works
In elections to the Bundestag, or federal parliament, German voters cast two votes. The “first vote” is to elect a “direct” representative for their local constituency, much like in a British election: the candidate with the most votes wins the seat, except in some rare cases.
The “second vote” is for a party list, as in many European countries. The refinement of the German system is that the overall membership of the Bundestag is designed to be proportional to the second vote.
