Second vote agreement
A second vote agreement is an informal, legally non-standardized candidate agreement before elections to the Bavarian state parliament . Mutual election recommendations allow two candidates from the same party to increase their individual chances of being appointed.
The second votes agreements were created because the Bavarian state election system , a candidate for the voters of his vocal circle not with the second vote can be selected: The Erststimmenkandidat appears on the - - in Bavaria also personalized constituency list not in ballot of his vocal circle on. Since constituency lists are assigned in the order of the total number of votes of an applicant (first votes plus second votes), each candidate must try to gain as many second votes as possible from other districts of the administrative district in addition to the votes from his home district. In second-vote agreements, this is systematized through paired agreements between candidates, which, for example, can provide for election campaign appearances as guests, personal recommendations in the advertising material or joint events. If candidates without such agreements apply for votes outside their home constituency and thus violate party-internal rules (“vote poaching”), this can be sanctioned, as in the case of SPD MP Hans Hartl, up to and including exclusion from the party.
The agreements only have an effect on candidates who have not already been successful as direct candidates and therefore have to put on the constituency list. In the SPD, second vote agreements are therefore common in almost all electoral districts, in the CSU, however, they are of little importance because the MPs here regularly entered the state parliament via electoral district mandates.
Individual evidence
- ^ Claudia Stegmann: Catching votes in the district of Ebersberg , Augsburger Allgemeine Online from February 23, 2013
- ↑ Melitta Burger: Candidates as Paper Tiger , Frankenpost.de of October 4, 2008
- ^ Hermann Redl: Page no longer available , search in web archives: Widuckel is to run for the SPD for the state parliament , Donaukurier.de from April 26, 2012