Translated from German with an LLM (Claude). The German original is authoritative.
The pen name “Janeway” is inspired by Captain Kathryn Janeway from Star Trek. I write here about proposals to make our political system more democratic and fairer. Every proposal is backed by figures and sources, and I disclose my own calculations.
I think democracy is a good solution. However, it depends on how it is designed. In my voluntary work I helped draft the election rules for our committees and refined them over several terms. In doing so, I learned how important the rules are.
I see the same thing on a larger scale in federal elections. Even before election day, the polls make it possible to estimate which parties will make it into the Bundestag. Anyone who wants their vote to make a difference then chooses only among those. That is how I, too, voted tactically in the 2025 election and put my cross next to the party that was only my second choice, so that my vote would not end up without a seat. For the same reason, small parties consider whether to stand at all.
At its core, my question is whether every vote is worth the same. Currently, every vote is counted equally, but not every vote has the same chance of making a difference.
I don’t blame anyone for this, because everyone acts according to the rules they find, whether voters, parties, companies or private individuals who donate large sums. So, in the spirit of “don’t hate the player, hate the game”, I write here about the rules themselves.
If you are new here, the best place to start is the article 6.8 million votes without a seat: Why Germany should abolish its five percent threshold. All demands from all articles are collected on the demands page. So far, only the article on the five percent threshold has been translated into English. The other articles are available in the German version.
I am a member of a small party, but I deliberately write here as a private individual. My concern is democracy, not the interests of a party.
An LLM (Claude) helps me with copy-editing, fact-checking and graphics, but the content, opinions and proposals are my own. Images generated by an LLM are labelled as such below the image.
Have you found a mistake, a better source or an objection? Then feel free to write to me at zukunft.gestalten@posteo.eu, and I will incorporate corrections.