Equality of choice

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The electoral equality is an expression of the principle of equality that this principle of the right to vote applies.

A weighting of the votes is not permitted. The right to vote multiple times is also incompatible with equal voting. This is also known from English as “one man, one vote”. Both a class option and a plural option are unequal . In the first case, the voters are divided into different classes, for example in such a way that different numbers of voters vote in the classes, but the classes each send the same number of representatives. The votes of the voters then have a different weight. In the second case, some voters get more votes than other voters.

Germany

Empire

Historically there were individual states in Germany in which the election was unequal, for example in Prussia with the three-class suffrage and in the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg with the additional vote for voters older than forty years. Such electoral inequalities were abolished in 1918-1919. The right to vote in the Reichstag since 1867, however, was the same in this sense. The electoral equality was affected by the fact that the number of voters in the Reichstag constituencies differed.

A choice can be unequal, but still general. In Prussia, all male subjects were allowed to vote, which was considered a general election (together with some exclusions from voting rights, for example for the incapacitated or members of the army). Their voices, however, did not have the same weight. In Bavaria, on the other hand, there was a census suffrage , which means that not everyone was allowed to vote, only those who paid direct taxes (so it was not general). However, for those who were allowed to vote, the right to vote was the same.

Federal Republic of Germany

According to the established case law of the Federal Constitutional Court , equality of choice means that

  • every vote has the same counting value (100,000 votes = 100,000 votes, i.e. not: 100,000 votes = 1 seat),
  • every vote has the same legal chance of success (not "success"),
  • a consideration takes place at the time of voting ( before the count, ex ante).

Depending on the electoral system ( proportional representation or majority voting ), the court distinguishes between the different variants of equality. The right to vote must form a consistent system. Therefore, elements of proportional representation may not be arbitrarily combined with that of majority voting.

The different standards of the BVerfG in majority and proportional representation are sometimes criticized as a hole theory .

Extract from BVerfGE 95, 335 , 353 f .:

“From the principle of equal voting [...] it follows for the electoral law that the vote of every person entitled to vote must have the same count and the same legal chance of success. An ex ante consideration is decisive here. This requirement of equality is historically opposed to a different weighting of votes according to the person of the voter, his class or his financial situation [...]; today it maintains equal opportunities in the strict and formal sense.

The electoral equality prescribed by the constitution in Article 38.1 sentence 1 of the Basic Law has different effects in the majority election and in the proportional representation: The purpose of the majority election corresponds to the fact that only the votes cast for the majority candidate with the same count result in the allocation of mandates. The votes allotted to the minority candidates, however, are not taken into account in the allocation of parliamentary seats.

[...]

On the other hand, equality of votes in proportional representation means that every voter can have the same influence on the party-political composition of parliament with his or her vote (... stRSpr). This results in requirements for a specific success value equality of the proportional representation for the seat allocation procedure after the voting, in which the numbers of the votes cast for the lists are set in relation to each other and then the seats to be allocated in the list election are allocated.

[...]

The decision in favor of a certain electoral system, either for proportional or majority voting or for a combination of both systems, means at the same time that the legislature must observe the standards of electoral equality applicable within the framework of the respective system. "

European Union

In elections to the European Parliament ( European elections ), the principle of electoral equality is not respected, as the individual countries (regardless of voter turnout) are assigned a fixed number of seats, which is greatly overrepresented in small countries (e.g. 800,000 per member of parliament in Germany Citizens, in Malta 70,000 citizens). The individual countries thus represent (multi-person) constituencies with significantly different success rates.

Article 39.2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union , in contrast to Article 38.1 sentence 1 of the Basic Law, does not require voting equality for federal elections.

Individual facts

In the past, there were often electoral laws in which the principle of equal choice did not apply. Examples are the census suffrage and the three- tier suffrage . For some existing or proposed electoral processes, it is controversial whether they maintain equality of choice. For example, it is argued that proponents of the right to vote for children de facto demand multiple voting rights for parents and that with the introduction of quota regulations such as a quota for women, the beneficiary groups gain a higher voting weight.

The question of electoral equality also plays a role in the debate about the size and layout of constituencies . Significantly different sizes of the constituencies lead to different chances of success of the voters depending on the constituency. (See section above: »European Union«).