Schleswig-Holstein state election

[jimrtex]

How is the status of the SSW legally defined?  That is, could any party declare itself to be a minority party and not be be subject to the threshold, or are there other tests applied?

Can voters vote for any party?  Do the CDU or SPD appeal for Danish support, and how do they do so?

[jimrtex]

How is the status of the SSW legally defined?  That is, could any party declare itself to be a minority party and not be be subject to the threshold, or are there other tests applied?

Can voters vote for any party?  Do the CDU or SPD appeal for Danish support, and how do they do so?

Voters can vote for any party. SSV's main group is the Danish and Frisian minorities but SSV also gets German votes. The SSV exeption from the threshold was part of an agreement between Denmark and BRD in the early fifthies where the Danish minority in South Schleswig and the German minority in North Schleswig/Sonderjutland got special priviliges

Is the exemption for the SSV spelled out for that particular party, or could any party declare that they target Danish and/or Frisian minorities.  For example, could a party adopt the platform of the CDU or SPD, but with an emphasis on minority advocacy, name itself with the Danish equivalent of the German party name and contest elections.  Its single member could always sit with its sister party.

Does the SSV contest elections for the German Parliament?

[jimrtex]

Indeed a good question. I just took a look at the electoral law of Schleswig-Holstein. In article 3, section 1 it is stated that "parties of the danish minority" are excluded from the 5%-clause. The SSW is not specifically mentioned. But it´s noteworthy that the plural is used ("parties" instead of "THE party of the danish minority").

I´m not totally sure about this, but I would say that in the case that another danish party is founded, it´s up to the election supervisor of the state to decide. If he or she refuses to grant the party this special status it would probably end up before the court.

Ironically, I met CDU members who already claim that the SSW is just a danish-speaking "spin-off" of the SPD.

This system could have a tendency to lock Danish speakers in.  They either have to accept the political ideology of the SSW, or vote for a German party.

I wonder what would happen if they followed the New Zealand model.  As I understand it, Maori's can choose to be on the national voting role or the Maori voting role.  Constitutiencies are defined based on the number that choose each.  I think one of the Maori constituencies is the entire South Island.

In a proportional system like Germany, Danish speakers could choose a Danish ballot, and the first allocation of seats would be based on the number of voters who voted with a Danish or German ballot.  Then the seats would be allocated separately for the Danish and German groups.  The threshold (5%?) could be maintained since it is likely that several parties would achieve 5% of the Danish vote (there might a higher effective threshold because of the small number of seats).  Candidates could be formally affiliated with the German parties, or they could run on an separate Danish party.

[jimrtex]

The problem is...you'd need a quite large state house if 5% of the minority vote is to produce a seat.

If an elected  body has more has than 20 members, the 5% threshold serves to deny representation to parties who would otherwise be entitled to proportional representation.  Rather than saying that if you get 5% of the vote you will be represented, it says if you fail to do so
you won't be represented.

If the Danish minority had a electorate that was equivalent to less than
20 seats, then those seats would be distributed in proportion to the
votes of the Danish voters.  There would be a higher effective threshold, but nobody would be denied their proportionate share.

[jimrtex]

While that's true, hte point is that it's not practicable for a minority this small. There's 69 seats in the Schleswig-Holstein state house. The SSW won 3.5% of the vote. Go figure.

If people could vote "Dane" rather than "SSW" then there might have been more support than 3.5%.  5.8% would result in 4 Danish seats (or maybe 5.1% on a more favorable rounding rule).