Mehr Demokratie dank Ersatzstimme?

When in the summer of 2022 the Electoral Law Commission of the Bundestag recommended the introduction of a spare vote, it took up a concept that was originally only intended to mitigate the side effects of electoral thresholds. This opened up an exciting discussion: Are systems with a spare vote actually more democratic—and if so, why? Are they constitutionally permissible or even required? Are they practicable? And what would be the political impact of such electoral systems? Since the number of votes that do not achieve a success value in federal and state elections is steadily increasing, ranked-choice voting systems are more relevant than ever. This conference volume sheds light on the pros and cons in this respect and reflects the state of research on this subject.

With contributions by
Philipp Barlet | Ralf-Uwe Beck | Joachim Behnke | Björn Benken | Sarah Händel | Daniel Hellmann | Anne Herpertz | Hermann K. Heußner | Eckhard Jesse | Matthias Rossi | Alexander Trennheuser | Robert Vehrkamp