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Mehr Demokratie Urges East German States to Cut Electoral Threshold to Three Percent

Following the Thuringian court’s dismissal of an Ecological-Democratic Party challenge this month, advocates warn that the five percent rule has left hundreds of thousands of votes unrepresented.

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Overview

  • Mehr Demokratie has called on all East German states to lower the parliamentary entry threshold from five to three percent in order to improve voter representation.
  • The group has proposed a “replacement vote” that allows electors to allocate a secondary preference if their first-choice party fails to meet the threshold.
  • Activists highlight that 14.3 percent of ballots in Brandenburg and significant shares in Saxony and Thuringia were effectively wasted, complicating coalition formation.
  • Campaigners note that the five percent barrier was adopted after the Weimar Republic to curb excessive party fragmentation but now argue it undermines representative democracy.
  • Upcoming elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern are poised to bring the threshold debate onto campaign agendas.