Three-class suffrage

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Call for elections in the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger 1881: “Fellow citizens! 3rd class voters! "

The three-class suffrage was a suffrage (electoral system) in the history of several states. It is known in German history primarily through the Kingdom of Prussia . There it was used from 1849 until the end of the monarchy in 1918 to elect the members of the House of Representatives . The House of Representatives was the second chamber of the Prussian Landtag .

The name comes from the fact that the voters had a weighted vote based on tax performance in three divisions ("classes"). Apart from the fact that only men could vote, it was a universal right to vote. But it was fundamentally an unequal right to vote, because the votes had very different success rates depending on the class.

The idea of ​​the three-class suffrage came from France , although it was introduced in Germany at the municipal level as early as 1845 in the strongly French-influenced Rhine province . Until the First World War , census voting was not uncommon and also applied in other countries such as Sweden .

The Prussian three-tier suffrage was, in turn, a model for similar electoral systems in several other German states and occasionally in other countries. It became the hated symbol of the democratic deficits in Prussia. This deficit, in turn, had consequences for the whole of Germany because Prussia was the dominant power. However, in most other countries, too, the electoral systems were unequal and often not even general.

Basis and main features

The legal basis was in particular the “Ordinance on the Execution of the Election of Members of the House of Representatives” of May 30, 1849 and the repeatedly amended “Regulations on the Execution of Elections to the House of Representatives”, which was issued for its implementation. The right to vote in three classes was enshrined in the revised Prussian constitution of January 31, 1850 .

An electoral law provided for in the constitution did not come into existence until 1918. The regulation remained almost unchanged until 1918, only one paragraph was added. However, the ordinance was partially overridden by laws or replaced by new regulations several times, for example in 1860 the electoral districts and places of election were determined by law, in 1891 and 1893 the formation of the electoral divisions was reformed and in 1906 some minor changes were introduced to streamline the electoral process. There was never a fundamental change.

The choice was unequal: The voters were divided into three departments (classes) according to the amount of their tax payments and thus had very different weightings of votes. The election of the MPs was indirect: the voters with the right to vote chose electors , who in turn chose the MPs in their constituency. The choice was not secret in third grade.

Electoral process

Eligibility to vote and eligibility

Every male Prussian who had reached the age of 24 and had lived in a Prussian community for at least six months was entitled to vote. He was also not allowed to have lost his civil rights through a final judgment or to receive public relief for the poor . In contrast, there was an age limit of 25 years for the Reichstag election . There was no division into three classes in the Reichstag election, but here too, as in other states in the 19th century, recipients of public poor relief were excluded from the right to vote.

Under the Reich Military Act of 1874, active military personnel, with the exception of military officials , were excluded from the right to vote, both in state elections and in elections to the Reichstag.

Anyone who had reached the age of 30, had held Prussian citizenship for at least three years and had not lost their civil rights through a final judgment was eligible for election.

Primary electoral districts

The electorate voted in their Urwahlbezirk 3 to 6 electors. Each primary electoral district provided as many electors as it had a full 250 inhabitants (according to the last census). A primary electoral district had a minimum of 750 and a maximum of 1749 inhabitants. Municipalities or free municipal districts with fewer than 750 inhabitants were combined with others to form a primary electoral district. In municipalities with more than 1750 inhabitants, the municipal administration was responsible, otherwise the district administrator was responsible for the division. The body responsible for the division appointed the electoral officer of the primary electoral district, who appointed the secretary and three to six assessors for the electoral committee from among those eligible to vote.

The division into primary electoral districts was handled politically in part, either by Gerrymandering or by the fact that primary electoral districts with unpopular voting behavior were tailored so that they had a population just below the threshold of an additional voter (e.g. just under 1,000) and primary electoral districts with more desirable Majority a population just above it.

The three departments (classes)

Three- class suffrage : Share of electoral classes in the 1849 election

The voters were divided into three departments ; the term classes is unofficial. Until 1891 this was basically done at community level. If several communities formed a primary electoral district, the division into three was carried out at the level of the primary electoral district. The basis was the revenue from direct state taxes (class tax or classified income tax , property and trade tax).

The voters who paid the most taxes voted in the 1st division. There were so many eligible voters divided into this first division that a third of the tax revenue was reached.

The second division was divided into those who, among the remaining eligible voters, made the largest tax contribution until a third of the total revenue was reached again.

The other eligible voters formed the 3rd department. If the tax amount of a person entitled to vote only partially fell into the first or second third, it was assigned to the higher department. If the tax amount of the 1st department exceeded a third of the total tax, the amount due to the 2nd and 3rd department was recalculated by dividing the remaining amount equally between these two departments.

In communities with several primary electoral districts, it was possible that after this procedure there were no eligible voters in the first or even in the first and second departments. In these cases, the classification was carried out again at the level of the primary constituency. In 1908, in 2214 of 29028 primary electoral districts, the 1st division consisted of only one person. In 1888 there was only one eligible voter in 2283 of 22749 primary electoral districts, in another 1764 there were two eligible voters and in 96 primary electoral districts there was only one eligible voter in the 2nd department.

In the years 1891 and 1893, the division of the electorate into the departments was reformed. The background was the far-reaching tax reform under the Prussian Finance Minister Johannes von Miquel . Because of it, property, building and trade taxes were no longer state taxes, but municipal taxes. The class tax and the classified income tax were replaced by a progressive income tax, and a supplementary tax (wealth tax) was introduced as a direct state tax.

Due to the progressive income tax rates and the supplementary tax, wealthy citizens were burdened more heavily, so that even fewer men would have voted in the 1st and 2nd departments. In order to prevent this, a fictitious amount of three marks was set for every voter who did not pay income tax. Voters who did not pay any other direct tax besides this fictitious amount always voted in the 3rd section. In the future, direct communal taxes were also taken into account when creating departments, alongside direct state taxes (income tax, supplementary tax, trade tax for businesses moving around).

Where no municipal taxes were levied, the taxes that would have been due under previous law were still included as a notional amount. This was de facto a safeguard clause for landlords in parish-free manors. There were no municipal taxes here, as landlords would have paid them to themselves. Until then, landowners paid a lot of property tax, but often not much tax on income. Without the crediting of fictitious municipal taxes, some could have slipped into the 2nd department. Direct municipal taxes paid by the electorate elsewhere in Prussia could be taken into account when creating a department at his request.

Another important change for cities in 1891 was that in future the division into departments was always carried out at the level of the primary constituency. Until then, in the municipalities divided into several primary electoral districts, the required tax amount for the 1st or 2nd department was the same in all primary electoral districts (unless a department would have remained unoccupied). This has now changed, in some cases drastically. In Cologne in 1888, 494 marks were required for the 1st department in all primary electoral districts. If, on the other hand, the tax sum had been divided into thirds at the level of the primary election districts, this amount would have fluctuated between 18 and 24,896 marks depending on the primary election district. After the change, the amount required for the 1st department in Berlin in 1893 fluctuated between twelve marks in the poorest primary electoral district and 27,000 marks in Vossstrasse (where the Reich Chancellery was located). On the one hand, this change made it easier for many urban citizens with low and middle incomes to move up to the 2nd or even 1st department. On the other hand, wealthy citizens in wealthy primary electoral districts could slip into the 3rd division; Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow had to vote in the 3rd department in 1903.

The share of the departments in the eligible voters (primary voters) fluctuated over time and also regionally. Nationwide, the 3rd department accounted for around 80–85% of those eligible to vote, and the 1st department around 4%. In 1913, 79.8% of those eligible to vote were in the 3rd department (1898: 85.3%), in the 2nd department 15.8% (1898: 11.4%) and in the 1st department 4.4% ( 1898: 3.3%).

In 1913 there were 190,444 valid primary votes nationwide in the 1st division and 1,990,262 in the 3rd division. Since both divisions elected the same number of electors, the votes of the first division primary voters were on average 10.45 times more weighted than those of third division voters.

Election of electors (primary election)

The election of the electors was carried out by the primary voters in a meeting. The day was the same across the country. Only those entitled to vote had access to the polling station , with the exception of law enforcement officers, whom the electoral officer could allow their presence. The election was carried out separately by department. If a total of three electors were to be elected, each department elected one elector, with six electors two each. If four electors were to be elected, the 1st and 3rd departments each elected one and the 2nd department two electors; if there were 5 electors, the 1st and 3rd departments each elected two and the 2nd department only one voter. A voter had to be eligible to vote in the primary constituency but not belong to the department in which he was elected.

The third division voted first, the first last. If the election was completed in a department, its voters, unless they belonged to the electoral board, had to leave the polling station. The voters of the 1st division could observe the voting behavior of all voters, while the voters of the 3rd division did not know how the higher divisions voted.

The election of the electors of a department was carried out in such a way that those eligible to vote were called one after the other in descending order of their tax payments, came to a table to be set up between the electoral officer and the other primary voters and recorded their vote. In practice, however, the voters mostly cast their votes from their seat. Votes under protest or reservation were invalid. The voter gave one or two names depending on the number of electors to be elected in the department. An absolute majority (more than half) of the voters was required for the election. This rule caused problems more often. Since the regulations did not explain what was to be understood by an absolute majority, electoral boards often declared people with a relative majority to be elected, contrary to the regulations. In addition, it was not expressly stated in the regulations that invalid voters were not to be taken into account when calculating the absolute majority. If three people achieved an absolute majority out of two electors to be elected, those with the most votes were elected. Most of the electors were elected with a large majority.

If an absolute majority was not achieved, the unelected people with the most votes were shortlisted, twice as many people as there were electors. The regulations (in the most recent version of October 20, 1906) regulate the procedure as follows:

§ 17. If the first vote does not result in an absolute majority, those who have the most votes will be shortlisted in the order resulting from the number of votes up to twice the number of electors still to be elected.

If the selection of the persons to be shortlisted is doubtful because two or more people have the same number of votes, the lot will decide between them who is to be shortlisted.

If in the first vote or in the shortlist, the votes are divided equally between only two or - if it is a question of the election of two electors - between only four people, the lot between the two or four people decides who is elected (Art. I § 2 of the law of June 28, 1906).

If only one voter receives an absolute majority of votes in the shortlist, while two were to be elected, the second voter is to be elected in a second election in accordance with the above provisions. Otherwise, there will be no second shortlist.

If, in a vote, the absolute majority of votes fell to more people than there were electors, those who have the highest number of votes are elected. In the event of a tie, the lot decides here too.

The lot is drawn by the hand of the electoral officer.

In the case of a shortlist, votes were invalid if they were not attributed to one of the eligible persons. Compared to the original regulation, the cited paragraph contained a change: up to 1906, instead of drawing lots, there was a shortlist if only two or four people received votes in the first ballot and they were all the same number.

If they were present, the elected had to declare acceptance or rejection of the election immediately, otherwise within three days, including the election day. If an elected person who was not present rejected the election, he was re-elected a few days later.

In 1906, in cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants, the electoral assembly was replaced by the now generally accepted deadline, in which the voters can cast their votes within a certain period of time.

Electoral districts (constituencies)

The electorates of a constituency met on a nationwide uniform day ( dates for all elections see article House of Representatives ) at an electoral place of their constituency that has been legally established since 1860 to elect the representatives. Usually there were several hundred electors in each constituency, in some cases well over 1000. One to three MPs had to be elected in the constituencies; before 1860 there had also been constituencies with more MPs. In 1860, 176 electoral districts were established by law. The electoral districts always comprised one or more entire urban or rural districts, only Berlin was divided into several electoral districts.

Apart from minor shifts in district boundaries and the relocation of polling stations in some electoral districts, there were no changes to these electoral districts until a change in law in 1906 (effective from the 1908 election) with one single exception. In 1906, several electoral districts with particularly large population growth were divided into smaller constituencies and a total of 10 additional seats were allocated to these areas (Greater Berlin 5, Ruhr Area 4, Upper Silesia 1). Otherwise there were changes in the electoral district division only through additional electoral districts for the areas conquered after the war of 1866 (1867 Hanover, Hessen-Nassau and Schleswig-Holstein, 1876 Lauenburg), where there were again minor changes in the 1880s. In the long term, there is a tendency towards more single-electoral districts:

Electoral districts by
number of deputies 		1861 1867 1876 1885 1888 1908
1 MP 27 105 106 104 105 132
2 MPs 122 123 123 124 125 121
3 MPs 27 27 27 27 26th 23
Total constituencies 176 255 256 255 256 276
Total mandates 352 432 433 433 433 443

The division, which was hardly adapted to the population development, also favored the conservatives, as their deputies came predominantly from eastern and rural parts of the country with low population growth.

Election of MPs

The election of the deputies was led by an election commissioner appointed by the district president, who was usually a district administrator or mayor. All records of the primary elections in his constituency were sent to the election commissioner. He had to check this.

After the election commissioner had to point out the legal provisions at the outset, the secretary and assessors were elected at the suggestion of the election commissioner, who together with them formed the electoral committee. From 1906 the remaining members of the electoral board were appointed by the election commissioner. This was followed by the election test. The election commissioner - and only he - had to propose to the electoral assembly the expulsion of electors if, in his opinion, their election was invalid due to legal violations. The electors decided on this with a majority of votes, whereby the electors whose election was objected to were also entitled to vote. Only then did the actual choice follow.

Like the primary elections, the election of the deputies was made by voting on the record, but the departments played no role here. If several MPs had to be elected, a separate election was held for each seat. An absolute majority of valid votes was required for election. If this was not achieved, a shortlist was made. Until 1903, all candidates who received more than one vote in the first ballot were allowed to participate in the second ballot. In each subsequent ballot, the weakest candidate was eliminated. If there were only two applicants left, the lot would be decided in the event of a tie. Since 1903, as in the primary elections, there was an immediate runoff election for the two strongest votes. If two candidates each received exactly half of the votes in the first ballot, the lot decided since 1906, until then in this case there was also a shortlist. In order to streamline the time-consuming election of MPs, if more than one MP had to be elected, electors had to cast their votes in one go since 1903. In other words, they had to indicate who they wanted to vote for the first, second and, if applicable, third seat. Over 90% of the MPs were elected in the first ballot.

If a deputy was eliminated during the electoral term, the same electors as in the main election elected a successor. Substitute elections were only held for electors who had died in the meantime or who left in some other way.

Effects

The electoral process in combination with the constituency division led to a very strong preference for the conservatives. In 1913 they received 14.8% of the primary vote, but had 149 of the 443 seats in the House of Representatives (33.6%, including two interns), the Free Conservatives even got 53 seats with only 2% of the primary vote. By contrast, the SPD received only 10 seats (2.3%) in 1913 with 28.4% of the primary voters. Measured by the share of votes, the center, national and left-wing liberals were more likely to benefit from the right to vote, but by far not to the same extent as the conservatives. The voting by party was only statistically recorded in the elections from 1898 onwards. It was determined by the electoral officer filling out an evaluation sheet in the primary election and entering his or her presumed political orientation for everyone who received a vote in the primary election. So it was concluded that the primary voters were politically oriented. If the electoral officer had not given sufficient information on this, one inferred from the behavior of the electors in the election of the MPs on their political orientation. Therefore the voting shares are only approximate. It should also be noted that the discrepancy between the proportion of votes and mandate among the Conservatives and Free Conservatives was not only due to the right to vote itself, but also due to the fact that voter turnout was usually particularly low in their strongholds.

Compared to the right to vote in the Reichstag, the right to vote in the House of Representatives was particularly favorable for conservatives, free conservatives and national liberals. It was disadvantageous for Poles , anti-Semites , Guelphs and especially for the SPD. In 1903 the SPD won 32 of the 236 Prussian seats in the Reichstag, but none of the 433 seats in the election for the Prussian House of Representatives in the same year.

Average tax revenue per eligible voter in gold marks in the Prussian provinces according to tax departments (1898)
province Department 1 Department 2 Department 3 total
East Prussia 485 139 15th 42
West Prussia 559 147 17th 48
City district of Berlin 2739 445 44 124
Brandenburg 635 168 21st 56
Pomerania 608 147 16 46
Poses 395 83 11 32
Silesia 546 113 15th 45
Saxony 724 181 21st 59
Schleswig-Holstein 654 208 23 63
Hanover 469 149 18th 49
Westphalia 662 146 22nd 59
Hessen-Nassau 589 163 27 72
Rhine Province 733 170 24 67
Hohenzollern 61 24 6th 14th
Prussia as a whole 671 165 21st 59

The turnout in all three departments was far below that in the Reichstag elections. In 1913 it was 32.7% (in 1898 only 18.4%), but in the 1912 Reichstag election in Prussia it was 84.5%. The possible reasons are varied: the election took place on weekdays and, in contrast to the Reichstag election, voting could take several hours, depending on the number of primary voters and the number of ballots. In the countryside, a long march to a neighboring parish was sometimes necessary, while in Reichstag elections there was always at least one polling station in each parish. The lack of voting secrecy and the possible negative consequences of casting a vote could also prevent eligible voters from voting. With those eligible to vote in the 3rd department, the relatively minor importance of their vote could play a role. In many cases, the importance of the primary election was also reduced by the fact that the primary electoral district or the entire electoral district was politically undisputed and the winner was practically certain beforehand. Voter turnout was particularly low in the 3rd department, where it was only 29.9% nationwide in 1913, while it was 41.9% in the 2nd department and 51.4% in the 1st department. The turnout was particularly high in the areas with a high proportion of the Polish population and in Berlin, while in the rest of the country the already low average, e.g. T. was still considerably undercut. Turnout was higher in cities than in rural areas. The specialist in three-tier voting rights, the historian Thomas Kühne, speaks of the “economy of abstention from voting”. The voters did not stay away from the election in protest against the restrictive suffrage, but because they could agree in advance who would vote - and it was enough for a few to cast their votes.

Since the tax revenue in Prussia was extremely different depending on the region, the result was that the requirements for being able to vote as a voter in the first or second division differed greatly depending on the province and also between different primary electoral districts of a larger municipality. In the Prussian state elections in 1898, an average of 1,361 marks had to be paid in the city and only 343 marks in the countryside in order to be able to vote in the first division. The average tax pay of a Berlin voter in the second division was 445 marks in the state elections in 1898, that of a corresponding voter in the Hohenzollern district was 24 marks. The differences were even more pronounced when comparing different primary election districts. In 29 particularly taxable Berlin primary electoral districts you had to vote in the third department up to a tax revenue of 3000 marks annually, while in four low-tax primary Berlin primary electoral districts a tax revenue of 100 marks annually was enough to vote in the first department. In some cases, this meant that even high-ranking Prussian state officials had to vote for the third division. Six out of ten Prussian state ministers voted in the Prussian state elections in 1893, including the Prussian Prime Minister Botho Graf zu Eulenburg and the Reich Chancellor and Prussian Minister Leo von Caprivi in the third division. Three other ministers voted in the second division while the tenth minister, the war minister, was not eligible to vote as an active military man.

Reform efforts

The left-wing liberals, and especially the SPD, regularly demanded that the right to vote in the Reichstag be transferred to Prussia. However, the conservative forces refused. However, the right to vote was considered out of date at the turn of the century and has now been criticized from all sides. Not only did Social Democrats take to the streets against the right to vote, but also progressive citizens, who also petitioned against the right to vote. The National Liberals, for example, demanded plural suffrage based on the Belgian and Saxon models, and further (together with the center) direct election and a new division of the constituencies to adapt to demographic developments.

In 1910 the Bethmann Hollweg government introduced a draft reform of the three-class voting system. This provided for the retention of the non-secret election and the three departments. The deputies should be elected directly and the number of citizens in the 1st and 2nd department should be increased by the fact that tax payments in excess of 5000 marks should no longer be taken into account when creating the departments. In addition, so-called cultural carriers should move up to the next higher department. The “cultural bearers” should include voters with a high school diploma and, in addition, persons serving in the civil service for a longer period of time (including non-commissioned officers). The latter group was intended to create a conservative counterweight to the educated, who were more inclined to the liberals and would also have been favored by the reform. The draft was flatly rejected by the SPD and did not find undivided approval from any other parliamentary group. Conservatives and the center, both of which were not very interested in a new regulation, changed the government draft considerably: the preference for the "cultural bearers" ceased, the indirect election was to be retained and the primary election, in contrast to the election of the MPs, was to be secret. The government rejected these amendments to the bill and waived further discussion of the bill without officially withdrawing it. In the Easter message of 1917, Wilhelm II promised democratic reforms. In the summer of 1917 a new draft law was introduced.

Presumably the reform of the universally unpopular electoral law failed to materialize because the left uncompromisingly demanded its replacement by the modern parliamentary electoral system, which, however, went too far for the liberal and conservative forces who were prepared to reform. Instead, they called for plural suffrage, which was favored by intellectuals such as John Stuart Mill and Otto Hintze .

Historical assessment of the three-class voting right

Recently, the Prussian three-tier suffrage has received a milder assessment than in previous decades, although it should be noted that it was viewed positively by both John Stuart Mill and Tocqueville. Hedwig Richter explains: "Especially when you consider that even the electoral rights of Afro-Americans, which had been fought for with thousands of dead and guaranteed with constitutional power, were in fact canceled out again around 1900, the Prussian attempt to resolve the social tensions caused by modernity with the help of the three-class suffrage, can hardly be described as unsuccessful. ”When it was first introduced, the three-tier suffrage was considered to be a more progressive suffrage, because its census was not based on property but on taxes and because it was“ general ”, because in principle every man could vote. Accordingly, it was heavily condemned by the conservatives. General, equal, secret and direct voting rights for men, as was the case in the elections to the Reichstag , only two of the 25 federal states and the realm of Alsace-Lorraine, Baden and Württemberg , had in 1914 . In other countries such as Great Britain, Sweden or the Netherlands, many men were not allowed to vote at all until the First World War because of the census suffrage, while in Prussia every adult man had at least one less decisive vote.

The Prussian right to vote was less democratic than in most other German states due to the lack of secrecy. In all other states except Waldeck the elections were considered secret after Bavaria in 1881, Braunschweig in 1899, Hesse in 1911 and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen in 1912. However, the secret election often only existed on paper.

The indirect choice, however, was quite common in Europe at the time. However, it was replaced by direct elections in most other German federal states by 1914.

Comparatively progressive - also in an international comparison - was, as mentioned, the generality of the Prussian electoral law, which in 1914 did not exist in 14 of the 25 federal states and in numerous other western countries (such as Great Britain). In Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz there was no elected chamber of parliament before 1918. In Hamburg and until 1905 in Lübeck there was a tax census (tax payment of a certain amount as a prerequisite for the right to vote). In Waldeck, the fulfillment of a tax census or real estate was alternatively required to obtain the right to vote. In Bavaria, Saxony , Hesse, Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt , Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, Lippe and Lübeck, the payment of direct taxes was a prerequisite for voting rights, in Sachsen-Altenburg , Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha and Reuss older line the payment of direct taxes and a separate household was required.

In addition to Prussia, three-class suffrage was in place in Braunschweig, Lippe, Saxony (only here 1896–1909), Saxony-Altenburg and Waldeck. In Hesse, after the change in the electoral law in 1911, voters had an additional vote from the age of 50, in Oldenburg from the age of 40. In Saxony there had been plural suffrage since 1909 , the voters had one to four votes, graduated according to income, age and education. In Reuss younger line , the same has been true since 1913, where the voters had up to five votes. In Lübeck there was a two-class suffrage, with the first class voting 105 and the second only 15 members. In most states with only one parliamentary chamber (Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hesse and [from 1911] Alsace-Lorraine had two chambers, one of these chambers was not elected), some of the deputies were either appointed by the sovereign or by certain Groups (such as various chambers, most taxed persons, large landowners, academics) elected. In Bremen ( eight-class suffrage ), for example, only 68 of the 150 seats were awarded in general elections, in Hamburg 80 out of 160, in Braunschweig 30 out of 48.

Three-class voting rights outside of Germany

In the Japanese empire , whose local self-government was strongly influenced by Prussian models, especially by Albert Mosse , the pre-constitutional Meiji government introduced a three-class suffrage in addition to the already applicable census restrictions (Japanese 3-kyū-sei seityo ( 3 級 制 選 挙 ) or 3- kyū lokyo seido ) for city councilors in the Meiji period . In the city of Yokohama , for example, only 698 residents were eligible to vote in 1889, and these richest citizens of the city then elected twelve members of the first city council in three classes of 601, 84 and 13 voters. In 1921, the class suffrage was abolished in municipalities belonging to the district, and replaced by two- class suffrage in urban districts ( shi ) . In 1925, the census restrictions, such as class voting rights, which had previously been lowered in several steps, were completely abolished.

In Romania, too, there was a three-class franchise right up until the First World War.

literature

  • Thomas Kühne: Three-class suffrage and electoral culture in Prussia 1867–1914. State parliament elections between corporate tradition and political mass market (= contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties 99). Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5174-2 (also: Tübingen, Univ., Diss., 1991/92).
  • Thomas Kühne: Handbook of the elections to the Prussian House of Representatives. 1867-1918. Election results, election alliances and election candidates (= manuals on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 6). Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-5182-3 .
  • Günther Grünthal: Parliamentarism in Prussia 1848 / 49–1857 / 58. Prussian Constitutionalism - Parliament and Government in the Reaction Era. Droste, Düsseldorf 1982, ISBN 3-7700-5117-3 ( Handbook of the History of German Parliamentarism ).
  • Jürgen Gerhards, Jörg Rössel: Interests and ideas in the conflict over the right to vote. A cultural-sociological analysis of the parliamentary debates on the three-class suffrage in Prussia . Leipziger Universitäts-Verlag, Leipzig 1999, ISBN 3-933240-71-9 .
  • Ernst Rudolf Huber : German constitutional history since 1789. Volume 3: Bismarck and the empire. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1963.
  • Jörg Rössel : Social Mobilization and Democracy. The Prussian suffrage conflicts 1900 to 1918 . Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2000, ISBN 3-8244-4410-0 .
  • Hedwig Richter : Modern Elections. A history of democracy in Prussia and the USA in the 19th century. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2017.
  • Heinz Wilhelm Schröder: Social democratic parliamentarians in the German Reich and Landtag. 1867-1933. Biographies, chronicles, election documentation. A handbook (= handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties 7). Droste Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, ISBN 3-7700-5192-0 .
  • Dolf Sternberger , Bernhard Vogel (ed.): The election of parliaments and other state organs. A manual. Volume 1: Europe. 2 half volumes. de Gruyter, Berlin 1969.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Boberach, Heinz: Suffrage issues in the pre-March. The right to vote in the Rhineland 1815-1849 and the emergence of the three-class right to vote. Published by the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties, Düsseldorf 1959; Richter, Hedwig: Modern Elections. A history of democracy in Prussia and the USA in the 19th century. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2017, p. 244 f.
  2. ↑ Margaret L. Anderson: Apprenticeship in Democracy. Elections and Political Culture in the German Empire . Stuttgart 2009, p. 497. cf. for example on the right to vote in the USA Alexander Keyssar: The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States . Basic Books, New York 2000, pp. 1-10, 62, 117, 134-135.
  3. ↑ Quoted from Georg August Grotefend, Cornelius Cretschmar (Ed.): Preußisch-Deutsche Gesetz-Sammlung. 1806-1911. Volume 6. 4th edition in a systematic arrangement. Schwann, Düsseldorf 1912, p. 350.
  4. ↑ a b c d Gerhard A. Ritter : Wahlgeschichtliches Arbeitsbuch: materials for statistics of the empire 1871-1918. Chapter two: Prussia . Beck'sche Elementarbücher, Verlag CH Beck, Munich 1980, ISBN 3-406-07610-6
  5. ↑ When assessing Brandenburg, it must be taken into account that at that time the relatively wealthy Berlin surrounding communities did not belong to Berlin, but to Brandenburg ( Berlin-Charlottenburg , Berlin-Schöneberg , Berlin-Steglitz )
  6. ^ Thomas Kühne: Three-class suffrage and electoral culture in Prussia. 1867-1914. State parliament elections between corporate tradition and political mass market, Düsseldorf 1994, pp. 178–190.
  7. ^ H. Richter: The construction of the modern voter around 1900. Alignment of electoral techniques in Europe and North America, in: Tim B. Müller / Adam Tooze: Normalität und Fragilität. Democracy after the First World War. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2015, pp. 70–90.
  8. ^ Minutes of the meeting of the State Ministry on May 26, 1910
  9. ↑ Paul Justin von Breitenbach: My book of life. 1850-1920 Handwritten records. Federal Archives Koblenz , III 3 - 4211 / Breitenbach
  10. ↑ Hedwig Richter: Modern elections. A history of democracy in Prussia and the USA in the 19th century. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2017, p. 469 f.
  11. ↑ Hedwig Richter: Modern elections. A history of democracy in Prussia and the USA in the 19th century. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2017, 469 f.
  12. ↑ Hedwig Richter: Modern elections. A history of democracy in Prussia and the USA in the 19th century. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2017, p. 252 f.
  13. ↑ Hedwig Richter: Modern elections. A history of democracy in Prussia and the USA in the 19th century. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2017, p. 253.
  14. ↑ Hedwig Richter: Modern elections. A history of democracy in Prussia and the USA in the 19th century. Hamburger Edition, Hamburg 2017, pp. 252–263.
  15. ↑ Before the turn of the century, there was general male suffrage outside Germany only in Switzerland and France . In Sweden around 1900 only 8.2 percent of the total population were allowed to vote because of the extremely high census. Oskar Poensgen: The right to vote . Teubner, Leipzig 1909, p. 134 f .; in Poensgen also presentation of the right to vote in other states.
  16. ^ Kurt Steiner: Local Government in Japan . Stanford University Press, Stanford 1965, p. 48.
  17. ↑ City of Yokohama, Election Oversight Commission: 選 挙 権 と 被 選 挙 権 ( Senkyoken to hisenkyoken “[Active suffrage and passive suffrage”)], column on history, accessed on May 30, 2019.
  18. ↑ Sōmu-shō (Ministry of "general affairs", English "internal affairs and communication"): 地方自治 制度 の 歴 史 (Timeline for the history of local self-government)