6.8 million votes without a seat: Why Germany should abolish its five percent threshold
In 2025, almost one in seven valid second votes did not win a seat in the Bundestag, 6.82 million in total. Without the five percent threshold, 86 of the 630 seats would have gone to nine parties that have none today, above all to the BSW and the FDP (my own calculation, see Method). The threshold should go, as it has for European elections since 2014. Without it, every vote counts equally, and four safeguards can prevent fragmentation and special privileges for individual parties.