Bremen election: special feature of Bremerhaven – the complicated electoral system

The smallest federal state of Bremen has a complicated voting system. One of the reasons for this is that the smaller city of Bremerhaven must be adequately represented in the two-city state. The state parliament, the Bremen Parliament, has 87 members. Of these, 72 MPs are elected for the city of Bremen and 15 for Bremerhaven.

Bremen and Bremerhaven are considered separate elective areas, each with its own five percent hurdle. A party that jumps the hurdle in an electoral area is represented in the citizenship. The mandates are assigned according to lists. Bremen is the last federal state whose state parliament is elected for four years. In other countries, the legislative period lasts five years.

The ballot paper is a 24-page booklet. Each voter can tick up to five boxes. The five votes can be accumulated (accumulation) or distributed (variation) for individual electoral lists and candidates.

Bremen: Only extrapolations on Sunday

However, this electoral process makes counting tedious. Therefore, on the evening of the election Sunday, the state returning authority only publishes an official extrapolation for the citizens, based on 95 voting districts. According to all experience, however, this extrapolation is close to the provisional official final result, which is determined a few days later after all votes have been counted in full.

In addition to the state parliament, Bremen and Bremerhaven will elect their city parliaments on May 14th. In Bremen, this is the city council, which normally consists of the Bremen parliamentarians. There may be small deviations because citizens from EU countries are also allowed to vote for city citizenship. In Bremerhaven, the city council is elected with 48 members. At the local level, 22 local councils are elected in Bremen.