The Union faction is outraged by a proposal by MPs from the traffic light coalition to limit the size of the Bundestag. The coalition is planning to devalue the constituency idea and stir up disenchantment with politics, said the parliamentary manager of the Union faction, Thorsten Frei (CDU), on Wednesday of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. In addition, it was “very bad style of the ‘traffic light’ to anticipate the deliberations of the electoral law commission”.

The three traffic light deputies Sebastian Hartmann, Till Steffen and Konstantin Kuhle had previously presented a proposal to ensure that the Bundestag would no longer exceed its standard size of 598 deputies in the future. To this end, the so-called overhang mandates are to be abolished, which arise when a party wins more direct mandates than it would be entitled to seats in parliament after second votes. The Union has traditionally benefited most from the overhang mandates. In the past two legislative periods, a reform of the electoral law failed mainly because the CSU and CDU strictly refused to reduce the number of constituencies.

A commission made up of MPs and experts has been dealing with various approaches to reforming electoral law since the beginning of April – the three traffic light MPs are members of the committee. Among other things, it is about limiting the size of the Bundestag, but also about issues such as increasing the proportion of women in Parliament and the possible lowering of the voting age to 16.

The CSU deputy and legal counsel for the Union faction, Michael Frieser, told the “FAZ” that the proposal by the traffic light deputies was “actually a well-known model of non-allocation of constituencies that have already been won”.

According to the proposal, the number of mandates each party is entitled to in a federal state should be calculated on the basis of the second votes – called list votes by the chairmen. If she achieves more constituency mandates with the first vote – the chairmen are now talking about personal votes – then the candidates with the worst personal vote results in the country will get nothing. So far they have been allowed to keep these as overhang mandates, the other parties receive compensatory mandates in return.

However, the corresponding constituency will still be represented in the Bundestag. Because with a second first vote, the so-called substitute vote, the voters can indicate a second preference. The substitute vote cast for the direct candidate who does not get a chance will then be added to this candidate. The constituency mandate is then given to the person who receives the most votes in the constituency.

Only one thing would change at the ballot box: voters would be able to cast three votes instead of the previous two.