Local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia 2009

Local election NRW 2009
2004 - 2009 - 2014
Data
Date: August 30, 2009 Choice: Local election Elective area: North Rhine-Westphalia Eligible to vote : 14 million EU citizens Turnout : 52.3% Procedure : Sainte-Laguë
Results
CDU: 38.6% −4.8% p SPD: 29.4% −2.3% p Greens: 12.0% +1.7% p FDP: 9.2% + 2.4% p Left: 4.4% + 3.0% p
Attendees
Parties : CDU , SPD , Greens , FDP , Die Linke , ödp , DKP , DVU , REP , NPD , ZENTRUM , GRAUE , Statt , HP , LD , AMP, Citizen Movement pro NRW , DSP, FAMILY , FAKT , Die Tierschutzpartei , ÖkoLi , Offensive D , PBP Voter groups : BfB , citizen proximity , social list Bochum , UWG Wattenscheid , citizen list for Dortmund , pro Cologne , UWG-MS , DIP and others
map

The local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia 2009 took place on August 30, 2009 . After the European elections on June 7th and before the elections to the 17th German Bundestag, it was the second of the three elections to which North Rhine-Westphalia was called in 2009. On the day of the North Rhine-Westphalian municipal elections, state elections were held in Saarland, Saxony and Thuringia.

In the local elections , the councils of the independent cities, the district representatives for the urban districts of the independent cities, the district councils (plus representation in the Aachen city region ) and the councils of the cities and municipalities belonging to the district were newly elected. At the same time, the mayors , mayors and district administrators were usually directly elected (plus city council for the Aachen city region). The election also decided on the composition of the two landscape assemblies (indirect) and the five regional councils .

This would have been the last local elections for a long time, in which the city councils and district assemblies were elected together with the mayors, lord mayors and district administrators, after the Rüttgers cabinet decided in 2007 to extend the term of office of the latter from five to six years. However, this regulation was reversed by the Kraft II cabinet before the 2014 local elections .

Legal basis

The Local Election Act of North Rhine-Westphalia (KWahlG NRW) is the legal basis for local elections. It stipulates that all EU citizens who have reached the age of sixteen and have lived in the electoral area for at least 15 days on election day are entitled to vote. (KWahlG NRW § 7) Eligible are those who are entitled to vote, have reached the age of eighteen and have had their main residence in the electoral area for at least three months on the day of the election. (KWahlG NRW § 12)

See also : Local voting rights in NRW

election day

The local elections should originally, as in the states of Baden-Württemberg, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia, "on the day of the election of the members of the European Parliament from the Federal Republic of Germany" (KWahlG NRW § 14) will take place on June 7, 2009. However, the XIV. Term of office lasted until the end of September 2009. The XIV. And XV. The term of office would have overlapped by almost four months.

Lawsuit against the election date on June 7, 2009

On September 19, 2008, the parliamentary groups of the SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen brought a judicial review complaint at the North Rhine-Westphalian Constitutional Court against the amalgamation of the election dates for the local and European elections . On February 18, 2009, the latter declared the relevant passage in the NRW Local Election Act to be incompatible with democratic principles and null and void. An overlapping of the electoral terms is justifiable for a maximum of two and a half months.

Legal action against the election date on August 30, 2009 and against the elimination of the runoff election

The Interior Minister Ingo Wolf (FDP) then set August 30, 2009 as election day.

The SPD again filed a lawsuit against the election date on August 30, 2009 and this time also against the elimination of the runoff election. The SPD argues that there is only a high voter turnout if it is merged with the federal election and that this has constitutional status. At the same time, the SPD wants to reintroduce the runoff election for district administrators and mayors, who rarely achieve high voter turnouts.

In 2004, according to the state return officer, there were 20 second ballots in 69 mayor and district council elections. The voter turnout was between 31% (district administration election Wesel district) and 51% (election of the mayor of Münster) and an average of all second ballots was 39%. The turnout in the first or only ballots was between 45 (mayor election Mönchengladbach) and 62% (district elections in Coesfeld and Warendorf) and the North Rhine-Westphalian average was 55%.

Constitutional judge Jürgen Brand declared himself biased after he was criticized for taking part in the election campaign as the SPD sub-district leader. His designated successor Thomas Griese resigned because he ran for the Greens in local elections in Aachen. Constitutional judge Barbara Dauner-Lieb , a member of the CDU state working group on justice, did not renounce and maintained her participation in the process. She was not a candidate in the local elections. A first hearing took place on May 5, 2009. On May 26, 2009, the Constitutional Court announced the rejection of the applications.

Three election dates

On August 30, 2009, the state parliaments in Saarland , Saxony and Thuringia were elected. Since these countries also take part in the European and Bundestag elections, elections will take place in four countries on three different dates in 2009.

Of the fifteen elections that took place in Germany in 2009, the state elections in Brandenburg and the early state elections in Schleswig-Holstein coincided with the federal election.

Eight local or regional elections took place on the day of the European elections.

Background from the perspective of the SPD

The SPD wanted to combine the local elections with the federal elections on September 27th . She argued that the turnout would then be higher and that this would benefit democracy. In 1994, the last time a local election coincided with a federal election. This was the last local election in which the SPD received more than 40 percent of the vote and the FDP achieved its worst result ever in a local election.

The SPD claimed that this circumstance was the background for the establishment of the additional election date by the black and yellow state government. This was contradicted by the director of the “NRW School of Governance” at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Prof. Karl-Rudolf Korte, who said that the SPD and FDP would benefit equally from merging with the federal election. The forecasts for the SPD and FDP are better for the federal elections than they were for the local elections.

The NRW SPD argued that North Rhine-Westphalia could not be expected to have three elections in a row.

Background from the perspective of the FDP

The FDP North Rhine-Westphalia wanted to achieve with the consolidation of European elections and local elections that both choices are attractive and mutually benefit from each other. This goal will only be achieved in 2014. If the local elections had been merged with the Bundestag elections, this target would not have been achieved in 2014 because the terms of office would then have overlapped too much.

The FDP further argued that local politics would come under the wheels if there was a joint election date with the federal elections, but that it would be supported by a poll anyway, which invalidated the SPD's allegations. In addition, only a separate election date ensured equal opportunities for the parties and the free electoral associations, which as municipal groups are not in the center of the nationwide public.

At the municipal level, the SPD was only in third or fourth place in some municipalities in the fourteenth term of office from 2004 to 2009, behind free voter groups.

The cost of choice

The cost of an election was turned into an argument for or against an election date by the opponents.

costs	Per voter	calculation	Argument / remark
€ 4.5 million additional costs	€ 0.32	CDU / FDP	"Normal personnel costs, expenses for ballot papers, electoral rolls, etc. are incurred with every ballot, regardless of whether one or two elections take place on one date"
Total costs of € 14.8 million	€ 1.06	Ingo Wolf	"The savings effect ... would be a maximum of 30 percent according to calculations by the Association of Towns and Municipalities."
Total costs of € 34.58 million	€ 2.47	City of Dortmund	Full cost calculation from 1998
€ 42 million total costs	€ 2.86	SPD	Full cost calculation that does not take into account that certain costs are incurred in the event of a merger.

Resolution of free voters

The State Association of Free and Independent Citizens 'and Voters' Communities in North Rhine-Westphalia (LWG) spoke out against the amalgamation of local and national elections. At their regional association day on May 20, 2006 in Dortmund, they passed a resolution:

“The Free Voters of North Rhine-Westphalia decidedly refuse to merge the federal elections with the local elections. [...]

• Local elections are so important that they justify a separate ballot and should not be overlaid by other electoral issues.
• Another decisive criterion for the free voters is that they are disadvantaged vis-à-vis the parties if the elections are pooled. The parties receive public money for the federal elections.
• The parties have airtime on public radio and television for the Bundestag election. The election advertising in the public cannot be clearly separated, which leads to a distortion of competition. "

- LWG : Resolution of the Free Voters of North Rhine-Westphalia to merge the local and federal elections in 2009.

Electoral system

District assemblies and city councils (NUTS-3)

The 2004 strongest party in the counties and urban districts (NUTS-2) in percent

The district administrators elected in 2004 (NUTS-2) according to party affiliation

The mayors of the independent cities elected in 2004 (NUTS-2) according to party affiliation

The mayors of the district-dependent cities elected in 2004 (NUTS-3) according to party affiliation or party setting up

The regional authorities of the NUTS 3 level ( districts and district-free cities ) are divided into constituencies. The electoral system is a combination of majority and proportional representation. The voters have one vote with which they vote for the constituency candidate. The candidate with the most votes is elected. The votes cast for the constituency candidates also decide on the composition of the district assemblies and city councils through the unchangeable reserve lists of the parties.

In 1999 the North Rhine-Westphalian Constitutional Court declared the five percent hurdle to be unconstitutional. With the elimination of this threshold clause, the local parliaments became more diverse. Thus, towards the end of the 14th term of office, representatives from ten parties and electoral groups sat in the city council of Duisburg.

The Supreme Constitutional Court declared a new threshold of 1.0 seats to be unconstitutional on December 16, 2008, as it would have meant a de facto five percent threshold in a local council with 20 councilors . The 2007 Local Election Act provided for this. However, the decision also led to the fact that in 2004 in Duisburg a seat on the city council for the Duisburg alternative list was already available for 0.53% (corresponds to 0.39 average seats ) of the votes.

The seats are distributed using the divisor method with standard rounding .

On April 8, 2008, the organization “ More Democracy ” handed over 95,000 signatures for the popular initiative “More Democracy in Voting” . The initiative called for more democratic local electoral law with the possibility of variegating and cumulating . The state parliament rejected the initiative with the votes of the CDU, SPD and FDP. Popular initiatives in North Rhine-Westphalia tend to be non-binding petitions to parliament.

District administrators and mayors

At the head of the administration of the districts there is a district administrator, at that of the urban districts there is a mayor. So both are full-time electoral officers who are directly elected by the people. Whoever can get the most votes is elected. An absolute majority was not necessary in this election and therefore no runoff election . Since the abolition of the runoff election , joint election proposals from several parties and groups of voters have been permitted (Section 46d (3) KWahlG NW). If there is only one applicant, voters can cast a yes or no vote. The applicant is elected if he has received more yes than no votes and he was elected by at least 25% of the eligible voters.

Critics reject this system because if there are a large number of applicants, an applicant can be elected with 15% or less of the vote. Proponents point out that constituency members of the Bundestag are elected in simple elections without anyone questioning their democratic legitimacy . In addition, the runoff elections of the two best-placed winners, which were customary until 2004, consistently had a very low turnout, which is not conducive to democratic legitimation. In the 2004 local elections, only 112 of the 408 direct elections were decided by a runoff vote, whereas in 296 cases one candidate achieved an absolute majority in the first ballot.

The term of office of the district administrators and mayors elected in the 2009 election lasts 6 years (KrO NRW § 44, para. 1 and GO NRW § 65, para. 1) . With this change the choice should be strengthened as a person choice, it was reversed by the law to strengthen the local democracy .

District representatives and district chairman / district mayor (LAU)

Independent cities are usually subdivided into three to ten city districts (GO NRW § 35), which correspond to the Local Administrative Unit (LAU) . A district council with 11 to 19 members is elected in these . The number of district representatives must be odd. The district councils are elected from party lists that the voter is no longer allowed to change. From among them the district representatives elect the District Director (GO NRW § 36). In individual cities, the district chairman is called the district mayor , for example in Cologne.

The creative leeway of the district representatives and district heads / district mayors is very limited. You essentially only have the right to be heard by the mayor or the city council .

Municipal and City Councils (LAU)

District-dependent cities and municipalities, which correspond to the LAU level , elect their councils like the urban districts.

mayor

Mayors are three different officials in North Rhine-Westphalia. In cities like Cologne, the head of the district elected by the district council is the district mayor. In all independent cities, mayors are the honorary deputies of the full-time mayors elected by popular elections. In the district-dependent cities and municipalities, the mayors are the full-time main administrative officials elected by popular elections, analogous to the mayors of the independent cities.

In contrast to the district mayors, the mayors of the district-dependent municipalities have greater flexibility in their municipalities.

Size of municipal representations

City or municipality (KWahlG NRW § 3, Abs 2, a)			Districts (KWahlG NRW § 3, Abs 2, b)
Residents	Representative	Constituencies	Residents	Representative	Constituencies
up to 5,000	20th	10	up to 200,000	48	24
5,001-8,000	26th	13
8,001-15,000	32	16
15,001-30,000	38	19th
30,001-50,000	44	22nd
50,001-100,000	50	25th
100,001-250,000	58	29
250,001-400,000	66	33	200,001-300,000	54	27
			300,001-400,000	60	30th
400,001-550,000	74	37	400,001-500,000	66	33
			over 500,000	72	36
550,001-700,000	82	41
over 700,000	90	45

The size of the municipal representations is staggered according to the number of inhabitants and fluctuates without any overhang or compensatory mandates from 20 to 90 representatives in municipal and city councils and from 48 to 72 in district assemblies. The municipal representatives can set the number of their seats in their statutes by 2, 4 or 6 lower than the law for a municipality in the respective size class, but the number of seats must not be less than 20 (KWahlG NW, § 3 para. 2 ). The number of seats is always an even number, and the number of electoral districts is always half of that (without taking into account overhang and compensation mandates). In each constituency, a representative is elected by a relative majority. If a party or electoral group in the electoral district receives more mandates than it is entitled to in relation to the will of the electorate (overhang mandates), the other parties and voter groups receive compensatory mandates, which increases the number of members of the representation accordingly (KWahlG NRW § 3, Paragraph 3).

Results since 1946

The CDU achieved its best result with 50.3% of the vote in the local election of 1999. The SPD achieved its best result with 46.6% in 1964, the Greens with 10.3% in the previous elections in 2004, the FDP with 12, 2% in the third elections after the Second World War in 1952. Since 1999 the number of parties represented has risen sharply.

2004 Nationwide share of voters for parties and groups of voters

The CDU achieved its best local election result of all time in 1999 and received more than half of the votes. This result was revised downwards somewhat in 2004 and was 43.4%. It was the strongest party in the majority of the districts, won the majority of the district administrators, has the second largest number of mayors and is the strongest party in the majority of the district-dependent towns and cities.

The last elections that the SPD won were in 1994. In 2004 it had its worst result of all time. It was only able to maintain its results in the Ruhr area and in the northeast of the country.

Since the fall of the five percent threshold, groups of voters and small parties have come off stronger in local elections. In some districts of the independent cities and in some district-dependent cities and municipalities, groups of voters achieve up to a quarter of the votes.

See also : Results of the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1975  and results of the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia up to 1969/73

Forecasts

Various polls were published prior to the election.

date	survey	Client	Sunday question	CDU	SPD	FDP	GREEN	LEFT	others none
October 8, 2008	Forsa	star	Parliament	41%	30%	13%	8th %	10%
February 4, 2009	Forsa	Star / RTL	Parliament	42%	26%	13%	9%	6%
		Star / RTL	Prime Minister	56%	17%	-	-	-	-
February 26, 2009	Omniquest		Parliament	34.3%	26.8%	12.8%	14.5%	6.6%
March 2, 2009	"Demoscopes"		Local election	32.7%	27.5%	10.7%	15.4%	6.1%	7.6%
March 29, 2009	Omniquest	ksta	Cologne Council	26.1%	35.1%	10.6%	19.6%	3.5%	5.1%
			Mayor Cologne	37.6%	50%	5.3%	like SPD	kK	7.1%
November 2007	Start Institute	SPD Dortmund	Dortmund Council	35%	41%	3%	12%	5%	4%
April 2008	Forsa	Phoenix Citizens Forum	Dortmund Council	33%	36%	6%	13%	6%	6%
June 2008	Forsa	Phoenix Citizens Forum	Dortmund Council	34%	34%	6%	14%	6%	6%
September 2008	Forsa	Phoenix Citizens Forum	Dortmund Council	32%	36%	7%	14%	7%	4%
January 2009	Forsa	Phoenix Citizens Forum	Dortmund Council	35%	35%	6%	16%	5%	3%
			Mayor Dortmund	26%	29%	like CDU	10%		35%
April 2009	Forsa	Phoenix Citizens Forum	Dortmund Council	34%	37%	6%	14%	4%	5%
			Mayor Dortmund	27%	32%	like CDU	7%		34%
June 2009	University of Duisburg-Essen	WAZ	Dortmund Council	24%	44%	10%	10%	8th %	4%
			Mayor Dortmund	33%	43%	like CDU	12%	7%	5%
June 2009	Start Institute	Ruhr news	Dortmund Council	32%	38%	7%	11%	5%	7%
			Mayor Dortmund	26%	34%	like CDU	5%		35%
June 2009	Forsa	Phoenix Citizens Forum	Dortmund Council	28%	39%	7%	12%	6%	8th %
			Mayor Dortmund	29%	32%	like CDU	6%		33%

Parties before the 2009 election

Jürgen Rüttgers, Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia and CDU Chairman, openly campaigned for social democratic voters. In the 2004 local elections, the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia was the party with the highest number of votes nationwide. However, she could no longer achieve her good result from the local election in 1999, in which she received over half of the votes. In the municipalities belonging to the district, the CDU faced strong opposition from free voter groups in its strongholds . In many places, they were able to enforce a mayor against the CDU candidate. Several CDU mayors left the party, even during the term in office, and are now independent. In the SPD stronghold of Duisburg, the CDU was able to get a CDU mayor through with the help of the other parties. In Cologne, Fritz Schramma , a CDU mayor , has also ruled since 2000 .

In the 20th century, North Rhine-Westphalia was the home of the SPD . But this has changed. The NRWSPD has been gradually losing votes in its strongholds for years. The SPD's share of the vote in local elections has been falling since 1964. Since 1999 the SPD is no longer the strongest party at the local level nationwide. The SPD also suffers from the increasing fragmentation of the left spectrum. In addition to the party Die Linke , other left parties and groups of voters compete with it in many places. In addition, there are attempts by the NRW CDU to give itself a more “social democratic” profile than the federal CDU has.

Nevertheless, the SPD had the largest number of mayors in North Rhine-Westphalia and was the strongest party in many cities in the 2004 to 2009 electoral period, including Bochum, Bottrop, Dortmund, Duisburg, Herne, Mülheim and Oberhausen.

For Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen , NRW is a key country. In many big cities it is the third strongest force before the liberals. It was the strongest party in the Cologne city center from 2004 to 2009 and provided the district mayor . In the town halls of the towns and municipalities belonging to the district, the Greens appointed two mayors, both of whom were elected in the first ballot in 2004. With the town of Rhede , Borken district and the municipality of Laer in the Steinfurt district , these are both municipalities in the Münsterland . The university city of Münster itself, also the seat of the North Rhine-Westphalian constitutional court , is a stronghold of the Greens in the state. The Greens, like the SPD, took part in a constitutional complaint regarding the date of the local elections, which was upheld by the North Rhine-Westphalian Constitutional Court.

The FDP North Rhine-Westphalia since the local elections of 1984, only the fourth power and the smallest at the local level nationwide antretenden parties. Between 2004 and 2009, the Liberals appointed four mayors in the town halls of the towns and communities belonging to the district, for example in the town of Pulheim in the Rhein-Erft district , in the town of Wiehl in the Oberbergisches Kreis , in the town of Wermelskirchen in the Rheinisch-Bergisches Kreis and the community Eitorf in the Rhein-Sieg district . Thus, all FDP-governed town halls were located in the area of ​​the FDP district association Cologne in the Rhineland .

Die Linke entered 2004 as PDS or WASG. In many cities they had the addition of an open list (OL) and enabled non-members or members of other parties such as the DKP to run for candidates on their lists. The left was not represented in many local parliaments between 2004 and 2009. The state chairman Wolfgang Zimmermann wanted to increase the number of mandates in this election from 145 to 600 and achieve double-digit results. It did not appear nationwide in 2009.

Among the small national parties, the Ecological Democratic Party can acquire a certain importance in individual municipalities.

A number of parties and voter groups have existed since the 1970s. The Wattenscheid Independent Voting Association only competes in the Wattenscheid district of Bochum, where it reaches a quarter of the voters.

Other parties and voter communities emerged locally around citizens' initiatives on individual topics at different times. The influence of the Essen and Dortmund airports on the emergence of new groups of voters in the surrounding cities is striking. As an example, the citizens 'list for Dortmund or the Mülheim citizens' initiative MBI .

The Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany (MLPD) received party donations totaling 2,762,167 euros from early retired and former mining engineer Michael May from Moers between April 18, 2006 and June 24, 2008 . The party has been participating in Marxist-Leninist electoral alliances for years, most of which have the letters AUF in their names, such as AUF Gelsenkirchen , Lebenswert, Aktiv, Incorruptible, Progressive for Leverkusen LAUF , Essen stands up! (ON) and the like.

The three established right-wing parties, NPD , DVU and the Republicans, are nowhere really strong. The Republicans, the strongest of the three, achieved values ​​over 4 percent in two independent cities in 2004. Nationwide, in 2004 the Republicans achieved 0.6%, the NPD 0.2% and the DVU 0.1%. The NPD is also in crisis due to financial scandals. On the right-hand side, too, newer groups of voters applied for the 2009 election, such as the pro-Cologne citizens' movement , which had founded branches under the umbrella of pro NRW in various cities (see also: Pro-Movement ). However, there are also older groups of voters who call themselves pro xy without being right-wing extremist.

Result 2009

Indirect elections

Landscape gatherings

The landscape assembly is the democratic control body of the two higher North Rhine-Westphalian municipal associations Landschaftsverband Rheinland and Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe . The North Rhine Landscape Assembly is also known as the “Rhenish Council” , the Westphalian Landscape Assembly is also called the “Westphalia Parliament” .

The district councils of the districts and the councils of the independent cities elect the members of the landscape assembly. The fact that the composition of the assembly corresponds to the balance of power in the association's territory is achieved through compensation mandates through reserve lists.

The voters from North Rhine and Westphalia-Lippe determine the composition of their regional assembly through their vote for the district council or the city council of independent cities.

The landscape assembly elects a chairman from among its members. The head of administration is the director of the landscape association. He and his seven department heads, the state councils , elect the landscape assembly for eight years. The landscape assembly must meet at least once a year.

map	year	Share of voters and members entitled to vote													Director
		CDU		SPD		Green		FDP		left		otherwise		total
	Landscape Assembly Rhineland (Rhenish Council)
	2004	43.1	52	30.7	37	11.1	13	7.4	9	1.5	2	6.2	-	113	Renate Hötte (acting)	independent
	2009	38.5	51	27.6	37	13.2	17th	9.8	13	4.4	6th	6.6	4th	128
	Landscape Assembly Westphalia-Lippe (Westphalia Parliament)
	2004	43.8	47	32.8	35	9.5	10	6.2	6th	1.2	1	6.5	1	100	Wolfgang Kirsch	CDU
	2009 2012	38.7 38.8	41 43	31.4 31.5	33 35	10.8 10.8	11 12	8.5 8.4	9 9	4.3 4.2	5 5	6.3 6.3	2 2	101 106

Landschaftsverband Rheinland: Others 2009: Free voters NRW (3 seats) and your friends (1 seat)
Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe: Others 2004: Citizens' List , Others 2009: Free voters North Rhine-Westphalia
After the repetition of the local elections in Dortmund on August 26, 2012, the Allocation of seats in the Association Assembly Westphalia-Lippe recalculated.

Regional councils

The regional authorities of the NUTS 2 level in North Rhine-Westphalia are the 5 administrative districts of Arnsberg , Detmold , Düsseldorf , Cologne and Münster . The head of the district government is the district president . This is not elected in North Rhine-Westphalia, but appointed by the state's prime minister .

However, the beige county government is the Regional Council . He is responsible for regional planning . It is composed of voting and advisory members.

The members entitled to vote are “two-thirds elected by the representations of the independent cities and districts, and one-third are appointed from reserve lists. The municipal election results in the independent cities and in the municipalities belonging to the district are decisive for the distribution of seats. "

The voter should therefore not always be aware that with his vote for the municipal parliament he also decides on the composition of the regional council.

Since the reconstitution at the beginning of 2010, the regional councils in Arnsberg, Düsseldorf and Münster have only included members from the municipalities who do not belong to the RVR. The corresponding regional councils are becoming smaller. Responsibility for regional planning was also limited to the areas outside the RVR.

map	year	Share of voters and members entitled to vote													District president appointed by the state government
		CDU		SPD		Green		FDP		left		otherwise		total
	Arnsberg administrative district
	2004	41.0	17th	35.2	15th	9.1	4th	5.9	2	1.5	1	7.3	-	39	Renate Drewke	SPD
	2009	44.4	7th	26.4	5	8.2	1	10.0	1	3.5	-	7.5	1	15th	Helmut Diegel	CDU
	Detmold administrative district
	2004	44.6	11	31.5	8th	8.6	2	5.7	2	-	-	9.5	-	23	Andreas Wiebe	Green
	2009	40.5	8th	29.3	7th	11.4	2	8.7	2	3.8	-	6.3	1	20th	M. Thomann-Stahl	FDP
	District of Düsseldorf
	2004	43.1	23	31.8	18th	10.3	6th	6.9	5	1.8	1	6.1	-	53	Jürgen Büssow	SPD
	2009	41.7	17th	24.7	10	12.7	5	10.6	4th	4.3	1	6.0	1	38
	Cologne district
	2004	43.2	20th	29.4	14th	12.0	5	7.9	4th	1.3	1	6.2	-	44	Jürgen Roters	SPD
	2009	38.5	17th	25.6	11	14.3	6th	10.5	4th	3.9	1	7.2	2	41	Hans Peter Lindlar	CDU
	Münster administrative district
	2004	45.9	12	30.8	8th	9.8	3	6.6	2		-		-	25th	Jörg Twenhöven	CDU
	2009	46.1	8th	24.5	5	11.8	2	9.6	2	3.0	-	5.0	-	17th	Peter Paziorek	CDU

All votes: Election of the city councils of the district-free cities and districts outside the RVR.

Association meeting Ruhr

The regional association Ruhr takes on similar tasks as the 5 administrative districts, only that the regional association is not a regional authority. One of its organs is the association assembly. Its members are elected by the representations of the member bodies (district assemblies of the districts and councils of the district-free cities) . The district administrators and the mayors of the member bodies are born members of the association assembly.

Through the election of corporate representatives and the election of the highest administrative officials (district administrators and lord mayors), voters in the Ruhr area indirectly influence the composition of the association assembly. A direct election as at the regional assembly of the Verband Region Stuttgart is not planned.

The association assembly elects the regional director from among its members .

map	year	Share of voters and members entitled to vote							Regional Director
		CDU	SPD	Green	FDP	left	otherwise	total
	Regional Association Ruhr
	2004	28	30th	7th	4th	2	-	71	Heinz-Dieter Klink	SPD
	2009	23	29	8th	5	4th	1	70

References

1. ↑ value 2004
2. ^ Ddp: Highest NRW court advises on local elections in May. (No longer available online.) In: HalternerZeitung.de. March 27, 2009, formerly in the original ; retrieved on March 30, 2009 : “Both constitutional judge Jürgen Brand, who is also the SPD leader in Hagen, and his representative from the Greens, Thomas Griese, had, after continuing criticism from the CDU, to participate in the negotiations between the SPD and the Greens filed lawsuits against the local election date and the abolition of the runoff election. " 
3. ↑ Wilfried Goebels: Two judges renounce. In: www.rundschau-online.de . Kölnische Rundschau , March 24, 2009, accessed on April 24, 2017 : “In the party dispute over the local election, NRW constitutional judge Jürgen Brand declared himself biased. Brand, who was elected SPD sub-district leader in Hagen a week ago, is not involved in the local election process. Thomas Griese, who was elected as a successor to the seven-member judges' committee, also waived. He runs for the Greens in local elections in Aachen. Judge Barbara Dauner-Lieb , active in the CDU state working group for justice, does not do without, however. ... Brand was criticized for being an active participant in the election campaign. CDU politicians saw the danger of "party judgments". " 
4. ^ Constitutional Court for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: Local elections in 2009 may take place on August 30, 2009. In: official website of the VGH NRW. May 26, 2009, accessed on November 7, 2014 : “This was decided by the Constitutional Court for the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in a judgment announced today, and with it the joint motion of the NRW regional associations of the SPD and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen against the determination of the local election date on August 30, 2009 rejected. " 
5. ^ Karl-Rudolf Korte: Local elections in the shadow of the crisis. WAZ , March 16, 2009, accessed on July 1, 2015 : "The FDP and the SPD have always shown themselves to be better equipped in the Bundestag election than in the local elections, so they could benefit from the merger with the Bundestag election." 
6. ↑ Wilfried Goebels: The dispute over the costs for separate election campaign dates escalates. In: Westfalenpost . March 10, 2009, accessed on July 13, 2015 : "Lampen (NRW tax payer chief) defends himself:" Ultimately, it does not matter whether a merger with the federal election on September 27th will save 40 million or only 20 million euros. Any additional unnecessary spending of taxpayers' money should be avoided. "" 
7. ↑ Press office: Interior Minister Wolf criticizes playing with wrong numbers: "Opposition endangers equal competition and equal opportunities in local elections". (No longer available online.) Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia, March 4, 2009, archived from the original on November 7, 2014 ; Retrieved on April 1, 2009 : "The savings effect of 30 cents per voter cannot justify the fact that the amalgamation brings local politics under the wheels of federal politics." Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Martin Fehndrich: Local election NRW: cheapest seat in Duisburg for 0.5%. In: Wahlrecht.de . September 27, 2004, accessed on March 27, 2009 : “In the local elections in Duisburg, the Duisburger Alternative List (DAL) won only 931 votes, i. H. 0.53% of the valid votes can win a seat on the city council. While a seat in Duisburg represents an average of 2366 voters (1.35%), the DAL's share of votes corresponds to just 0.39 seats. After the 5% hurdle has been eliminated and when the quota system is used with residual compensation according to largest fractions (Hare / Niemeyer), this claim is rounded up from 0.39. The Hare / Niemeyer method can vary widely from the standard rounding, so that a seat claim can be rounded up to well below 0.5, but a seat claim that is well above 0.5 is also rounded off. This DAL seat is the cheapest in North Rhine-Westphalia in terms of percentages and seat shares in this municipal election. The DAL would have needed even fewer votes for the seat. Even with only 792 votes (seat share 0.335) it would still have been represented in the city council. " 
9. ^ Rolf Kleinfeld: Mayor election: Almost all Bonn candidates want old regulation. In: General-Anzeiger online . General-Anzeiger , March 12, 2009, accessed on September 5, 2017 : "For the current CDU candidate Christian Dürig there are good reasons for and against the runoff election, he said, but considers the question of OB legitimation to be of an academic nature . “Because the Bundestag candidates have been elected in one ballot for many years now. Should they suddenly also lack the legitimacy if they receive less than 50 percent of the vote? ”The FDP, Greens, Bürger Bund and Left would like to get back the old runoff rule. ... Werner Hümmrich (FDP) agrees, but he points out the consistently lower turnout in runoff elections, which is why he is divided. " 
10. ↑ Stern: NRW-SPD in the upward trend , October 8, 2008, accessed on March 22, 2009
11. ↑ Kölnische Rundschau: Rüttgers stark, Kraft weak , February 4, 2009, accessed on March 22, 2009
12. ↑ www.blogspan.net: star survey: Rüttgers in North Rhine-Westphalia even among SPD supporters clearly ahead  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , February 4, 2009, accessed March 30, 2009  
13. ↑ Who would the North Rhine-Westphalia vote for if the Prime Minister were to be directly elected, Rütgers or Kraft?
14. ↑ Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger : Bad grades for the NRW state government , February 26, 2009, accessed December 6, 2017
15. ↑ Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger : Dear local election bloggers!  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , March 2, 2009, accessed March 25, 2009  
16. ↑ Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger : Absolute majority for red-green ( memento of July 13, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), March 30, 2009, accessed March 30, 2009
17. ↑ http://www.buergerforum-phoenix.de/de/dortmund-barometer/juni-2009/politische-stimmung-in-dortmund-im-juni-2009/index.html
18. ↑ (dpa / lnw): Linke is aiming for 600 seats in NRW local elections. (No longer available online.) Ruhr Nachrichten , January 12, 2009, archived from the original on November 7, 2014 ; accessed on November 7, 2014 : “The Left Party wants to win around 600 seats nationwide in the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in June. The party currently has around 145 seats in the local parliaments, said left state chairman Wolfgang Zimmermann on Monday in Düsseldorf. The party expects particular opportunities in the Ruhr area, where it can achieve double-digit election results, said Zimmermann. “ Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
19. ↑ MLPD. In: Unklarheiten.de Political Database . Lars Burghard, accessed on April 9, 2009 : "Michael May, June 24, 2008, € 70,000 - Michael May, May 22, 2008, € 33,000 - Michael May, February 27, 2007, € 200,000 - Michael May, June 9 2006, 500,000 € - Michael May, April 18, 2006, 1,215,000 € - Michael May, March 16, 2006, 50,000 € - Michael May, September 30, 2005, € 614,167 - Eberhard Schmid, August 8, 2005, € 175,000 - Michael May, June 2005, € 80,000 " 
20. ↑ State Planning Act (LPlG NRW) § 7 (1)

See also

• Local electoral law in North Rhine-Westphalia
• Results of the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia until 1969/73
• Results of the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia from 1975

swell

• Local Election Act (KWahlG NRW)
• Municipal code for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (GO NRW)
• Law on the Ruhr Regional Association (RVRG)
• Home Office
• The regional returning officer

Web links

Commons : Local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia 2009  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Wahlkommunal 09 - Information pages of the state center for political education North Rhine-Westphalia