[EM] RE: BC & PR

[Olli Salmi]

>D- I *believe* the 1919 Germany (Weimer) Constitution ONLY specified that
>some sort of p.r. was to be used.  The details were all statutory (subject to
>machinations).  I *believe* a form of party list p.r. was used ---
>
>party seats = total seats x party votes
>                      ----------------------------
>                               total votes

I skimmed through the constitution and didn't find much on elections so
you're right about that.
The Weimar Constitution in German:
http://www.psm-data.de/weimar/weimar_vv.htm

Elections Act 24/7/1920 in German:
http://www.reichspresseamt.de/Rechtsfundstellen/reichswahlgesetz.html
Elections were regulated by the Elections Act. Men and women from the age
of 20 could vote, men and women from 25 had the right to be elected. The
election system was a closed list PR. The number of MPs was not fixed;
there was a seat for every 60000 voters and a further seat for every 30000.
This is equivalent to Sainte-Laguë and you cannot get more proportional.

The elections were conducted in districts but the parties also had country
lists. The votes for a district list in excess of multiples of 60000 were
allotted to the country list that they had declared they'd support. This is
a system of additional members to make the result even more proportional.

The candidates were elected in the order that they stood on the list of
candidates. A district candidate list needed 50 signatories, a country list
20 signatories. Apparentements were possible between district lists which
supported the same country list. The same person could stand on a district
list and a country list, if the district list supported the country list.
It seems that there were no formal parties.

The ballot paper could contain one name or the number of a district
candidate list. I don't know what it looked like.

Here's an extensive site on Weimar history in German:
http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/

It has information on all the states and a nice colourful clickable map. I
checked Prussia, which had similar elections but one seat for every 40000
votes.

For those uncomfortable with German, here's a site in English. It's too
multimedia for me, so I didn't try it.

http://www.weimarer-wahlen.de/en/index.html
http://www.weimar-voting.de/en/index.html
"Weimar Voting
This project intends to visualize selected details of the voting behavior
in the German Reich between 1924 and 1933. The scope lies mainly in the
radicalization towards the left and the right edge of the political party
spectrum, which finally led to the end of the Weimar democratic system."

The legal texts might also be online in English but I didn't search for them.

Olli Salmi


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