🇩🇪 German elections (federal & EU level)

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Anyone know what is the best TV news coverage for German elections? Either for English or German language?

The most popular election coverage is broadcast on ARD for sure.
The most profound and elaborate one, however, is provided by Phoenix.
If you want news coverage in easy German and with less competent anchormen, you ought to try ZDF or Sat.1 or n.tv or WELT.
RTL and its executive anchorman Peter Kloeppel (whose Ohioan relatives are staunch Bush and Trump supporters, btw) are quite recommendable also, but they shamelessly put their livestream behind a paywall. 🤬

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Here's a little throwback to the legendary 2005 Elefantenrunde; you can click on "close captioned" in order to get a translation (albeit in Oettinger English):

Here is the highlight of the Elefantenrunde with German subtitles:

If you want to watch the complete round of talks starring tipsy Schröder, click here.

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I know some German from high school so I was able to roughly translate this and I got a good laugh out of this. Correct me if I’m wrong, but if I’m translating this correctly she’s saying “Laschet keeps producing a**bombs every day, right up until the last second.”

Fettnäpfchen = (literally:) little fat cup / (roughly translated:) sandtrap
ins Fettnäpfchen treten = to put your foot in your mouth; to drop a clanger

And in order to understand the wittiness of that Tweet, you should learn what an "Arschbombe" really is...

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It should be mentioned that Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Bullerbü are holding state elections today. In the latter, they citizens can also vote on a (non-binging) ballot measure about the communization of private home ownership following the GDR example.

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Even the head of the Federal Electoral Committee had to comment on this gaffe. While it seems to be true that he was violating the principle of ballot secrecy, the local electoral supervisors would've been supposed to notice this and would've had to hand him a new ballot. As soon as his vote is in the ballot box, it counts.

Here's the relevant Tweet by the Bundeswahlleiter concerning the "nationwide known politician" :

https://twitter.com/Wahlleiter_Bund/status/1442097968312569858

https://twitter.com/Wahlleiter_Bund/status/1442097975195492352

The "nationwide known politician" nevertheless committed a crime according to § 107c StGB.

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would ZDF have a broadcast later I can tune into and hear the projected results and analysis?

The ZDF livestream has a 3-hour timeshift feature.

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Which site for the best and most informative results?

https://www.tagesschau.de/wahl/archiv/2021-09-26-BT-DE/index.shtml

ZEIT Online also delivers some nice interactive maps.

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I'm obviously too dumb or too colorblind to recognize those digits (bar the SPD). 🤷🏼‍♂️
Those censored numbers remind me of Ishihara tests. lol.

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ARD Exit:

25% Union, 200 seats
25% SPD, 197 seats
15% Grune 119
11% AFD 87
11% FDP 87
5% Linke 39


Hope y'all enjoy a long night.

Don't you dare forget the glorious SSW's seat!!! 😤☝🏻

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ARD Exit:

25% Union, 200 seats
25% SPD, 197 seats
15% Grune 119
11% AFD 87
11% FDP 87
5% Linke 39


Hope y'all enjoy a long night.

Afd Down and Linke possibly kicked out great result

Alas, the Linke will probably win three direct mandates anyway. 😕

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Any website to follow the vote count?

https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2021-09/wahlergebnisse-bundestagswahl-2021-wahlkreise-karte-deutschland-live

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FDP's Kubicki indicates that FPD prefer Jamaica coalition.

They already had their chance.

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German elections get more and more Americanized: In Berlin-Wilmersdorf there are still tons of voters waiting in lines outside the polling stations after numerous voting ballots got mixed up between polling locations.
Ballots that were unwittingly cast wrongly are nevertheless declared null and void. 🤬

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In any event, Merkel probably won't be moving out for a few weeks.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=278196

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What does the basic law dictate here? who gets the first shot to present a government for a confidence motion in the Bundestag?

The president.

Edit: I just saw that Yeahsayyeah posted a more elaborate reply to your question.

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Updated ARD exit

24.7% Union 155+43 Seats
24.9% SPD 197 Seats
14.8% Green 117
11.3% AfD 89
11.2% FDP 88
5% Linke 40

An another indication of an Americanization of German elections:

Will the 2021 federal election turn into a 2016 US election? 🤔
The SPD might receive the most second votes while the Union could pickup more seats (thanks to overhang and leveling seats for the CSU.)
It would be extremely funny and ironic if the SSW seat (an SPD ally) was going to tip the scale.

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Any sites with map results? I'm a sucker for maps

Not yet. But the map will begin to be updated in one hour:

https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2021-09/wahlergebnisse-bundestagswahl-2021-wahlkreise-karte-deutschland-live

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Updated ARD exit

24.7% Union 155+43 Seats
24.9% SPD 197 Seats
14.8% Green 117
11.3% AfD 89
11.2% FDP 88
5% Linke 40

An another indication of an Americanization of German elections:

Will the 2021 federal election turn into a 2016 US election? 🤔
The SPD might receive the most second votes while the Union could pickup more seats (thanks to overhang and leveling seats for the CSU.)
It would be extremely funny and ironic if the SSW seat (an SPD ally) was going to tip the scale.

I thought the leveling seats were assigned based on national results? Was the law changed since last time?

There has been an election reform that made everything even more complicated. The first 3 seats or so are not going to be "leveled" anymore in order to stop the space-like expansion of the Bundestag. On the other hand, the seat shares don't depict the vote share accurately anymore.

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Can the FDP leader be the Chancellor in some grand coalition

Can? Yes.
Will? No.

In Thuringia happened something similar last year, though, with the FDP candidate becoming the minister-president despite only having received 5%.

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Ughhh, how stupid. I have my problems with the German law but at least the overhang system made it pretty clear how the overall seat distribution would work.

It's all the CSU#s fault. The easiest solution to that "inflation" problem of the Bundestag would be to cut down the number of constituencies.
However, the CSU is willfully obstructive in bringing that forth because they benefit from a huge number of direct mandates.

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East Germany:

SPD: 23%
AfD: 21% (+0.5%!!)
CDU: 17% (-10.3%!)
Grüne: 11.5%
Linke: 10.5% (-6.8%!!!)
FDP: 9.0%

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Barring another Groko, does it really matter whether the SPD beats the CDU by 1 seat or loses by 1 seat?

Only in the talking-points sense of which party has the mandate to govern.

Especially considering Lindner and Kubicki prefer a Jamaica coalition.

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as i thought, grand coalition remain, this time with spd prime-minister chancellor.

My gut feeling is apprehending the same... 😟

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Hans-Georg Maaßen, the controversial right-wing CDU candidate in South Thuringia, is in third place right now in his district:

https://wahlen.thueringen.de/datenbank/wahl1/wahl.asp?wahlart=BW&wJahr=2021&zeigeErg=WK&wknr=196

Current first vote:
Ulrich (SPD) 31.0 %
Treutler (AfD) 24.0 %
Maaßen (CDU) 23.2 %

He doesn't have a list spot.

Bye Felicia

Third place behind the AfD.
Ouch.

Frank Ullrich is a former biathlete, who won the Olympic gold medal in 1980 (for the GDR).
Schleswig-Holstein's education minister Karin Prien (CDU) publicly endorsed him over her party colleague Hans-Georg Maaßen.

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Lindner and Wissler both seem young, cool and full of new old ideas. Was hoping they could put together some kind of libertarian socialist coalition.

"Libertarian socialist coalition" sounds like "vegan pork sausage" or "half-pregnant".