How the German Bundestag is made up and elected

Background

Germany's 2027 draft federal budget went to the Bundestag for debate in September 2026, which makes it worth knowing how that chamber is put together.
The Bundestag's size is fixed at 630 Members, and they are elected for four years.
Each voter casts two votes, a system in use since the 1953 election.
The first vote goes to a candidate in the voter's own constituency, and Germany is divided into 299 constituencies of roughly 250,000 residents each.
The second vote goes to a party, and it is this vote that settles each party's share of the seats.
A party's nationwide seat total is then spread over its state lists, with constituency winners ranked by their first-vote percentage taking seats first; where a party wins more constituencies than its second-vote share covers, the weakest of those winners go without a seat, a rule called second-vote coverage.
If a Member resigns, the next candidate on the same party's state list takes the seat, and if the list is used up the seat stays vacant.