The Voting System That Gives You Two Votes

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sfRattan · 2026-06 · Recommendation

Germany uses mixed-member proportional representation. You cast two votes in each Federal election: one vote for a registered political party at the federal level and one vote for among a list of local candidates from those parties. The ballots famously have the phrase "You have 2 voices/votes" ("Sie haben 2 Stimmen") on the top [1]. The seats in the Bundestag are parceled out in proportion to shares of the national vote among federally recognized parties, and each party has a list of candidates who may or may not get a seat from that party's resulting allotment, based in part on the popularity of those candidates in their local list elections. The math of it is a bit more complicated than that, but it works quite well to completely sidestep the gerrymandering problem. The flipside is that parties must be registered federally to participate, and this gives the government a great deal of implicit power to exclude parties it doesn't like. CGP Grey has a good YouTube video explaining it, probably better than I have here [2]. [1]: [LINK] [2]: [VIDEO]

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cgrealy · 2019-10 · Recommendation

New Zealand uses Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) voting. IMO, it's the most representative voting system, precisely because it encourages smaller parties, and essentially forces coalitions. It's a bit complicated, but people are very used to it now. CGP Grey has a great video on it [VIDEO]

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thelasthuman · 2018-11 · Recommendation

Elections are supposed to be bloodless revolutions. If you can't effect change through the electoral system, then the non violent solution is to revolutionize how we vote. Relevant videos (IMO) First Past The Post Voting - [LINK] Range Voting - [LINK] Single Transferable Vote - [LINK] Alternative Vote - [LINK] Mixed-Member Proportional Representation - [VIDEO] Bonus video This video will make you angry - [LINK]

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