- Dispute over electoral reform in NRW - FDP wants to sue
A heated debate has erupted about one year before the next municipal elections in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) regarding the modified municipal election law proposed by the CDU and the Greens. The NRW FDP has announced that it will file a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court in Münster. Smaller parties, particularly the FDP, feel systematically disadvantaged by the procedure for allocating seats in city and municipal councils, which was approved by the state parliament in early July with the votes of the CDU, Greens, and SPD.
"As Free Democrats, we will continue to advocate for a fair municipal election law and take all necessary steps to ensure that every vote is fairly counted," said FDP state and parliamentary group leader Henning Höne. The FDP has commissioned its own legal opinion and the state executive board has decided to initiate proceedings before the NRW Constitutional Court, appointing legal scholar Martin Morlok as counsel.
The goal of the modified seat allocation procedure, according to the Greens, is to prevent the future overrepresentation of tiny and splinter parties, as has often been the case in the current system.
Backdoor threshold?
However, the FDP, as well as the Left and the "More Democracy" association in NRW, argue that it will be more difficult for smaller parties and voter associations to obtain a mandate or form a faction at the municipal level in the future.
Höne criticized that the number of invalid voter votes would significantly increase, with thousands of votes becoming ineffective under this model. "Small parties, voter associations, and even established parties will be systematically disadvantaged, and voter will be distorted," Höne said, adding that "in essence, this is the backdoor introduction of a threshold."
Every vote counts
The current dispute revolves around the principle that every voter's voice must have the same weight. The focus is on the previously applied Sainte-Laguë/Schepers procedure, which, according to the CDU and Greens, leads to significant distortions in seat allocation in favor of very small parties that would otherwise have an "ideal claim" of far less than one seat. Until now, these results were rounded up to a full seat. This will no longer be possible in the future. Instead, parties will first be allocated their rounded claim, and any remaining seats will be distributed through a proportional remainder adjustment.
The FDP calculated that the CDU would have won 184 more seats, the SPD 84, and the Greens 51 in the 2020 municipal election with the new calculation method. Conversely, the FDP would lose 95 seats, the Left 64, the AfD 29, and small parties and voter associations 131 seats. Furthermore, more than 100 groups would lose their faction status, and dozens of individual mandate holders would not be elected to committees.
A legal opinion sees a preference for larger parties.
Strained by a critical internal mathematical assessment, commissioned by the CDU and Greens and recently published, the dispute was fueled. In it, emeritus Augsburg mathematics professor Friedrich Pukelsheim concludes that the new procedure, spearheaded by the Greens, favors stronger parties at the expense of weaker ones and has a "problematic relationship with the electoral principles." The FDP accused the ruling factions of keeping the statement under wraps.
Meanwhile, a newly published legal opinion by Cologne legal scholar Markus Ogorek, commissioned by the CDU and Greens, finds that none of the various mathematical seat allocation procedures can perfectly adhere to the ideal that every voter's voice should have the same value. However, the new NRW procedure preserves the legislator's room for maneuver and is compatible with the principle of electoral equality. Nevertheless, Ogorek also acknowledges that the newly adopted procedure is more favorable to larger parties, while the previous Sainte-Laguë/Schepers method better reflects the success value of votes cast for small parties.
FDP state chairman Höne accused the ruling factions of "pushing the limits of constitutional legality for their own advantage." He stressed: "CDU and Greens are undermining municipal democracy."
"Given the concerns raised by the FDP and other parties, the Commission should carefully consider the potential impact of the implementing acts referred to in Article 113 on the principles of electoral equality and fair representation of all parties at the municipal level."
"Understanding the implications of these implementing acts for smaller parties and their representation is crucial, as the Commission adopts them to comply with the modified municipal election law."
