To counteract the growing size of the German #Bundestag, the coalition parties found what they call a compromise for electoral reform. What they seem to neglect is that there is more to electoral systems than size. A thread (1/9) #Wahlrechtsreform
The problem: A mixed-member proportional system with strong proportionality at the Land level: parties can win larger numbers of seats in SMDs than they deserve according to the proportional party list votes, to maintain proportionality all parties get additional seats (2/9)
The compromise for the 2021 election: (1) Compensation only starts after 3 overhang mandates; (2) and SMD mandates from one state can be compensated by regular party list seats from other states.
The compromise for the 2025 election: Cut the number of SMDs by 6.4% (3/9)
The compromise for the 2025 election: Cut the number of SMDs by 6.4% (3/9)
One side-effect of this reform will be decreasing numbers of women in the German Bundestag (if parties do not put considerably more effort into placing female candidates in viable SMDs than so far) (4/9)
In the current Bundestag, 154 women are elected through the party list (38% of party list seats), compared to 64 women elected through SMDs (21% of SMDs). Low women’s representation has been a consistent trend over time and for all major profiters of SMDs (5/9) 
The compromise for 2021 essentially implies giving more weight to the SMDs, hence decreasing the number of seats in which women reach reasonable levels of representation (6/9)
The consequence in the 2025 election will be an even higher number of male incumbencies. Already now, the higher reelection chances of men in parliament constitutes a strong barrier to women’s possibilities for election (7/9)
Bringing more men in 2021 will make it even tougher to balance gender inequalities afterwards– even under an electoral system that is slightly more favorable for women’s representation than the current one (8/9)
Electoral institutions have consequences for the size of parliament & vote-seat proportionality, but also the representation of women & citizens of IO, as well as legislative behavior. So much related scholarly work – so little public attention in the German debate (9/9)
Here is the correct graph!
