Germans, please go to vote!
Just go the vote, and make sure your family and friends go to give their votes.
I'm not local, I cannot vote over here, but had seen multiple times in modern times voter suppression has been a big deal, it's easier to make you not to bother to vote than change your mind who to vote.
I had worked brexit UK, where people voted it due they weren't happy about the PM. As it was good time to vote against him. Without thinking what brexit actually was. So use your voice by voting. What do you wish the future of country will be in this new era.
I know German has issues, as every Europe union contries. If the problems are easy to solve they would have been solved already, don't belive one tag line promises.
I'm just wanna say, as a fellow user. Just go to vote.
I'm an American. Germans, please don't do to yourselves what we did. Keep AfD as far from power as possible.
Please go vote, Germans! We are in pain and it’s going to get worse. Don’t be stupid. Look at us and see why it’s so important for you to go vote.
The AfD will likely get about 20% (I haze it, but its the reality we live in), but what is also great is, that our leftist party will get about 8%. They won't be in the government, but they for sure will annoy the hell out of them. They will also pressure the more left leaning parties to not do everything our conservatives want to do. They also promised that they want to push to forwards to the so called "Mietendeckel" (rent lid) to end the raising of rent prices which means more stability for about 46% of people. I am optimistic, that they can do this. They have completely rearranged themselves and skyrocketed from about 2.5% a few months ago to now 8% in the polls. We didnt have so many members in the left party in 15 years. The left party has also been responsible for the crarion of the minimum wage in Germany without being part of the government.
Even tho that the government will be ass, I hope for our left party do actually change something. Even tho we aren't part of the government we already won this election.
Good luck from Spain, a friend of mine is in Berlin with your party, has worked very hard theses days, and hopes you can get a good result. Go ahead!!!
That's exactly what I'll do tomorrow.
One exception: if you plan to vote AfD... Maybe don't vote.
If you want to vote AfD you should put a Hakenkreuz. This way the vote is counted twice.
And don't forget to sign the paper with your full name
and send the paper to the Verfassungsschutz...
No no no, but if you vote AfD it is very important to sign your vote
Just FYI https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__108a.html
Lots of politicians would be jailed, if it would be that easy ...
Or for the CDU. They are the ones that will enable the AfD to rise even more and I am already betting, that if nothing changes fundamentally, they will work together with them in 4 years.
I doubt anyone on here would vote AFD
Hnmm..
But yeah its not just a privilege but a duty to vote.
Fixed. Funny how that post got removed on any reddit subs. I had tried to figure out why was that. Like just mod removed. And nothing else.
? Germany is old-fashioned and when it comes to elections I'm happy that we're sticking to pen and paper. And actual humans doing the counting.
On a sidenote - Starlink isn't that big in Germany. I don't think I've ever read/heard about any public authorities using it.
Yeah, voting is essential.
But don't worry about starlink, the German voting process happens on paper sheets. The voter has to be identified before the vote. Then all votes get counted by hand and multiple times, submitted by fax and telephone.
We had electronic voting, but it was gone as fast as it came. I voted electronic once in a local election in the early 2000s
Please do vote, Germany. Learn from the US and reject this evil disease
I would, but it's 16 hours early.
Do I have any hope for a progressive government? Do I have hope that anyone but Merz becomes chancellor?
No, too many old men in this country for that.
But damn it, I have 1 vote to cast and cast it I will, giving it 100% to a party I tolerate. Not voting is voting for the end result, and the AFD doesn't deserve 1% of my vote, let alone what percentage they end up at.
Warning: Bad design, but instead of arguing over the top part, which definitely has some considerations that make it a bit more complicated, my main concern is the bottom part.
It's not enough that my vote is thrown away if I don't vote, but put in a blender with all the other non-voters and then distributed in part to the very parties I do not like.
Look at last parliamentary election in CZ.
By increasing attendance by few percent we got rid of communist party which was in parliament from 1945...
I was arguing to non-voters who adopted a "my single vote doesn't matter" perspective. A single vote in a country is never a few percent.
If people already know and trust that their vote can add up with others to a few percent here or there, they would already go and vote in our system I feel.
When I think about it it may had exactly opposite effect, so much parties stayed under the 5% threshold that 1 000 000 votes didn't mattered.
Yes you read it right 1/10 of our country's votes fell through without making any difference. (The ratio is probably worse because not everyone is eligible to vote).
well, except if someone votes for a party that gets less than 5%. it's a bit similar with the US elections, when democrats would have won, if ppl didn't vote 3rd party for unrealistic reasons.
Yeah, but throwing out some splinter groups to make a stable government possible is necessary after all, we remember Weimar - though we should not have that threshold at 18 seats by percentage or 3 direct mandates.
On the other hand, I disagree on blaming the democrat loss on third party voters. Third party votes stayed roughly the same compared to 2020 (+0.5 million, not all towards left), while 6 million democrat votes were lost. Democrats simply did not get enough people to the booths with their campaign.
Actually you have two votes
Unless I vote for a winning independent local candidate, then my second vote is annulled.
But this isn't about the exact mechanism of German elections. I say colloquially I have 1 vote to cast/2 crosses to set.
Other way around, if an independent wins then second votes are annulled. If a party candidate wins they're put on the top of the list of people from that party who'll get into parliament when percentages are turned into seats.
You can vote early...
AfD declared class war... on the working class. So if you don't go and vote, there's a big risk of that coming to you.
please don't fuck up like us americans just did. I mean I did not but ugh, an aweful lot did.
*November 2024* Germans to Americans:
*February 2025* Americans to Germans:
Hungarian here, please, don't repeat our mistake from 2010!!!
The media might say that things are bad, but looking bad, the media exaggerated a lot of things. They tried to report as much crime committed by Roma as it was possible (even remembering the anniversaries of some of the cases), and so on. Then we had to realize "Roma crime" was on the decline, and Fidesz dismantled the laws that were responsible for the very decline (raising the mandatory school age to 18, now it's lowered to 15). "Fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to destruction."
Please go vote. Don’t join the US and Russia axis.
Unless you were planning to vote for afd. Then you should kys.
Follow dear leader's example
No.
::: spoiler spoiler I have already voted per mail weeks ago :::
Same
Und wenn ihr's irgendwie einrichten könnt: bitte keine Nazis wählen. Danke.
I recommend HAKON's classic Youtube Video "How to tie your shoes without accidentally voting AfD"
FCKAFD...
I'll do my job! 🫡
Done
Done
Done
Voter Suppression isn't really a thing in Germany. You are automatically registered to vote, and absentee voting is also really easy. Fill out a form online, get the ballot per Mail and return it with a postage-already-paid envelope
Sorry, but as someone who had their vote suppressed this time due to impossible short mail voting times (and this not being the first time) I have to sadly disagree. If you live abroad and not somewhere close to an German embassy, voting is usually not feasible without a lot of time and money involved. And without residency in Germany you are also not automatically registered for voting.
That's not voter suppression, it's a risk you take when moving outside of Germany. The German state can't guarantee that you can easily vote if you move outside of its jurisdiction.
It affects all kinds of people depending on mail in vote this time including some that live in Germany. The federal voting commission has even explicitly warned about it.
As there is a strong correlation between mail in votes and progressive voters, and it was the CDU that enforced this faster than actually possible election, it is a classic case of voter supression.
And that is only the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of other subtile ways in how the German government suppresses votes from people that are not living in the same small German village the last 20 years or so.
Voter suppression is not some big conspiracy, it is about people not caring enough to improve something because it ultimatly benefits them to keep it as it is.
No, the ballots were sent out on February 6th. That's plenty of time.
Source : I voted by Mail
Talk about being priviledged without actively saying so 🙄
Then explain me the privilege. I don't see it
That is typically the case with priviledge 🙄
That do be true.
Do you have a better system in mind? Care to expose it?
There is a lot of potential for digitalisation of the process even if you don't want the final vote to happen digital.
People who live abroad permanently shouldn't be able to vote anyways. Also Dual Citizenship shouldn't be allowed
Well if you moved abroad permanently then that's a tradeoff you need to accept. DHL Express isn't also that expensive (50-200€)
You coudn't even get the documents to vote in time as the government surely doesn't use DHL Express, and DHL Express also doesn't cover a lot of places.
And it effects anyone that moves abroad temporarily for more than 180 days.
But anyways, I have the feeling that it is pointless to discuss with someone that is openly suggesting anti-constitutional and borderline racist things here.
What is Borderline Racist about my comments?
I don't think people should vote, who don't have to face the consequences of their vote.
It's the same things with Turkiye which citizens don't want Erdogan, but most Turkish Citizens living abroad vote for him. In Hungary and other autocracies it's the same thing.
I want a fast path to citizenship for people who want to live permanently here, or EU Citizens who moved to another state.
But if you take up a citizenship of another state you should loose the German one, unless you have a good point and apply for an exception. That's how it was a few years ago, and there is nothing unconstitutional about it
The old citizenship laws left millions of people who were born and raised in Germany, who went to school here and who pay their taxes here, and who have never had a home other than Germany without equal rights. So saying you oppose the reforms that finally allow these people to fully participate in our society isn't a great look.
I also wrote that I want a fast path to citizenship for those people, I just said I didn't like the part of the reform where you don't have to give back the citizenship anymore when you pick up another
You said that dual citizenship shouldn't be allowed. Do you think that someone applying for German citizenship should be forced to renounce any other citizenship in order to receive a German one? Because that's what the law used to be. And many people had and have reasons for not wanting to give up their original citizenship that went beyond the sentimental (not that pure sentimentality is not a valid reason).
German citizen are german citizen. There are no second class German citizen with lesser voting rights. Suggesting otherwise is clearly unconstitutional and about on the same level as AfD "remigration" plans, especially when you explicitly mention holders of two passports that typically tend to have an immigration background.
If you want to die on that hill, then I guess that's your opinion.
But if someone emigrates to Switzerland or the US to make more money and pay less taxes and becomes a citizen there, I think it's fair for them to return their German Citizenship and don't have a say anymore in how this country is run
What is not fair in my opinion is making decisions without having to deal with the consequences
Comparing this with Remigration Plans is completely out of place in my opinion
Right, because there are a few rich people that probably don't bother to vote anyways, we should strip a substantial part of the German citizens of their voting rights?
I think people had a bit old fashioned view of voter suppression. It has been nowdays more pushing certain messages to certain people. I was more ref about the modern ways online, like what happened during brexit. Just search "cambridge analytica + voter suppression" To simple way: spd voters get bombarded about how spd has fucked them years and years, green voters get bombarded how green part don't do their jobs. To make image that they don't deserve your vote anymore. Or it's better to send message by not voting at all. And as this all happens online, based people's own Internet history, it's not visible to outsiders. There was few damn good documentaries after brexit how that worked. It's just using social medias data to send personal message, using adds, promotions, or just algorithms push, based people's data.
I'm doing my part.
Yep will do 🫡
But if you want to vote for AfD or CDU, please stay at home.
Or FDP.
Kind my point, but I think all of them are going to vote anyways. I'm more worried about the rest. And potentially voter suppression. As seems most people aren't aware how it works now days. Like what happened during brexit. Just search "cambridge analytica + voter suppression"
I'm not sharing many values with CDU but Germany would be well advised to have one democratic party which is distinctively stronger than AFD. And at the moment it seems that CDU is the only democratic party which can keep the country in one piece. I would very much prefer to have a strong CDU than a strong AFD and many mediocre democratic parties.
The CDU is already voting together with the AfD in several parliaments including the national one, I really don't think the CDU is going to help us out of this mess. They want exactly the same things as the AfD, they're just slightly less crass about it.
I'm not trying to defend this behavior. I agree with you on that. But they do not want exactly the same thing as AFD. E.g. CDU is pro European, pro Ukraine and they take a stand against fascism.
How can you take a stand on fascism when you vote with the fascist party and copy their xenophobic and anti-"woke" rhetoric and politics?
In few countries in eu "the local CDU" had been vocal how they would never work with "local AfD", but when both of them got most votes, they had put together the government with only two parties. And that is my biggest worry. Like I do not agreeing with CDU, but them working with others that AfD is way better option that they going to bed with them. As it's just possible being a huge mess, not like usa mess, but both parties just siding with the biggest bullies and not getting anything done. Still blaming opposition parties (their old enemies) and minorities. Plus in current world tensions, governments parties that is just having inner fightings is not good for Germany or for European Union.
CDU isn't keeping the country in one piece. They're rhetorically dividing it through populism and lies.
They are trying to collect AFD voters.
Yeah, and all that actually does is strengthen the AfD by making their talking points socially acceptable.
Yes, it does. You are right. But this doesn't change my initial statement.
Voting CDU is just not that different to voting AfD, that's the point.
Geht wählen ihr Luschen!
Always vote folks!
Me and most of my friends will vote left or green, we'll try our best!
Germans, tell me your favorite pretzel bread recipe so this thread stays on active.
There's no such thing as pretzel bread. There is such a thing as lye rolls and the key thing is bloody use NaOH. Not Na₂CO₃. Even less, NaHCO₃. You'll need 3-4% NaOH in aqueous solution. Yes, actual lye. Caustic soda. Sodium hydroxide. No way around it.
Yeah good idea. I could use one too as i havent ever made them. I could try if I don't need to start planning to move out :D
I'm not german, but I do love a good malty pretzel. So chewy. So doughy.
It's a secret! We won't tell you. ;)
Your vote matters, the influence of AFD must be minimized.
On topic YouTube video by a rather popular German Comedian:
Germany's Far-Right Comeback | NYT Opinion
Please. We need sense to win
I’d love to vote but my voting mail didn’t make it in time to me so my vote won’t count ….
I got you. Will do my part!
It is done. 🧞♂️😤👌
I just fucking hope those polls were just more of the corporate right wing propaganda we see everywhere. I can’t imagine voting right after seeing all of the conservative incompetence in recent years.
I think it's important nowadays to have faith in your government and democracy. You definitely should vote and you can be proud to help put your country into a direction you feel is best. This post seems to convey the message that you should vote to save democracy. This fear of the end of democracy might just end up increasing the influence of extreme political parties. In the US election both parties warned it will be the last vote.
German polls seem to indicate that CDU/CSU will be the strongest party and they will most likely not go into coalition with AfD, so the AfDs influence will not be much but they will probably get a lot of votes anyways. And even though I do not like the idea of a chancellor Merz due to him being very polarizing, I think Germany got this.
Don't panic C:
Should Americans have faith in their government and democracy?
The American system of democracy is fundamentally flawed and has been even before the Republican success in the election. In Germany, there are a variety of parties to vote for that vary across the political spectrum- there is a multi-party system, the American democracy is a decision between right and alt-right, a heavily skewed two party system. I see your point, but this is a false equivalency and a bad analogy
What analogy?
The comment I replied to mentioned USA.
On a comment not about the USA. So why would you bring it up, if not to analogise Germany and the US? This post had nothing to do with the USA and by doing so you are engaging in whataboutisms.
We're very sceptic about the rigidity of the so called firewall (the confession of the big parties, especially CDU/CSU to form a coalition with the neo nazis). The chancellor candidate Merz (aka Mr. Burns) already jackhammered it by voting together with AfD against migration. Just yesterday he denounced millions of people who are protesting since the beginning of 2024 against the move of politics to the far right by asking where they were when Walter Lübcke a CDU governour fighting for migrants was murdered by a nazi in 2019. They were protesting in the thousands and the Antifa was investigating the backgrounds of groups like hammerskins, combat 18 or NSU. Mr. Burns yesterday also called lefts and greens "Spinner" (crazies) and was rewarded with frenetic applause by the bavarians to whom he was holding his speech. There are a few CDU politicians saying out loud that the firewall is history and they should work together with AfD.
Given Merz' right-wing rhetoric (incl. literally calling anyone who doth protest his behavior a "a green or leftist crackpot"; or pronouncing that "left-wing politics are over"), his playing-off of parts of society, his choleric antics, and his closeness to Maga-friendly figures like Spahn ... Yeah, no. Merz is danger.
Lol, I'm just honestly wishing Germans has seen what happens in USA when letting biggest bullshitter in power. I think I need logoff from Internet on Sunday, just have mental health day.
I see a lot of negative comments about the CDU here, but I certainly think Olaf Scholz is a bit of a disaster. From a Finnish perspective at least it seems in fact that apart from the Nordics and Eastern Europeans the rest of Europe still doesn’t have their shit together regarding Ukraine and defense in general. I don’t think CDU would necessarily be worse on that front and I do think they might be stronger on the economy too, Germany needs to get a bit more competitive going forward.
From another fellow nordic, I honestly think any vote that is not for AFD or the pro-russian left is good enough at this point. I also think that CDU suck, but the important thing now is keeping fascism and Russian influence down. Other values are secondary for now.
I’d love to hear why they suck and who would be better and why. SPD track record has been driving Germany to the ground the past few years and the Green denuclearization policies are a disaster both in terms of economics and self-reliance. But of course those view are mine and may well be wrong, that’s just one viewpoint and perhaps poorly informed.
CDU is only a smidge behind on AfD for being rightwibg shitheads, so no, CDU will be terrible.
I don’t necessarily see right leaning as bad automatically, but is there something extreme about the CDU or just that they’re right-leaning?
Eww
Yes, they recently voted together with the Nazi party AfD on the topic of immigrants. Just the most recent example. Also the lead candidate for that party voted against making marital rape illegal.
Could you elaborate on what they voted for? I mean yes AFD is certainly not to be supported, but I suppose it depends on what was voted upon as well. And yeah obviously marital rape is a horrible thing to support, so point taken there for sure.
The eww comment is interesting, I understand if you’re not a fan of conservatism as I’m not a fan of that either, but in Europe generally speaking the problem with the left is that they’re socially liberal which is great but then their economic policies have generally lead to overtaxation and overregulation.
It would be great to have a truly liberal government with far less government spending and far more individual freedom and also individual responsibility. Militarily the left is also understandably cautious given the history, but right now a militarily strong Germany would be needed by the rest of Europe.
How many immigrants are allowed into the country, basically.
The proposed tax plans from Die Linke is the only one with a net positive. Not my words but that of multiple economic institutions that looked at the tax plans from all the major parties. Basically, if you make less than 7000€ per month then with Die Linke you will have more after taxes and if you have more than that/if you have a more than a million euros in property you will start paying your fair share. Right now in germany, there is only income tax but no property tax which is highly unfair to the vast majority of people working and living in Germany.
Nah, such a government would have failed hard during Covid. And with the world as it is right now (or from now on) pandemics become more and more likely. A liberal government would be terrible for that.
Good, substantive comment. I disagree on the Covid part though, Sweden managed Covid wonderfully with quite liberal policies on that front. Don’t you worry with Die Linke that they’re quite pro-Russian or is that a mistaken view from me?
Die Linke is not Pro Putin or Pro Russia. The part of the party that split off some time ago (Now called Bündniss Sarah Wagenknecht) was the Pro Russia part.
Can't speak on Sweden.
Hell no, their economic platform is basically "make believe".
Which party do you think would fare better and why? What I thought I knew about Merz is that he favors tax cuts and deregulation, which are definitely factors that Germany does need currently, but am I wrong about his views?
Random tax cuts are trickle-down economics, otherwise known as bullshit that only helps make the rich richer. Deregulating in the areas of environmental protection, climate change, consumer safety and even tax fraud, as the CxU wants to do is just hostility against the people. What Merz also wants to do: double down on energy imports (oil, gas, and nuclear if his lucky stars align), and double down on old tech (ICE motors and gas boilers). Notably, pretty much any party wants to spur investment and make bureaucracy more fluid -- but the CxU have questionable methods betraying questionable intentions.
The current economic issues in Germany are caused by a fossilized export-oriented industries that have been outdone variously in terms of price, technology, and quality by Chinese competitors. Germany didn't have a plan but exported all its technology to China for some phenomenal two decades of growth. And Industry Captains were somehow surprised that all their Chinese JVs sucked up their technology, improved on it, and then sold it at half the price. Meanwhile, China had a pretty good plan, and has supported the solar, wind, battery, and EV technologies for over ten years. They may have overshot target a little bit though, as they appear to be learning that they are producing more of these goods than they can sell. But that creates the kind of market pressure that hurts German companies too.
Another issue is energy prices, and it's true that Germany is not the cheapest country country in that regard. However, relying on more expensive imported resources oil, gas, nuclear energy is exceedingly unlikely to help in that regard.
I will note that I am a Greens proponent. But I think the above reasoning makes some sense regardless.
Thanks, great reply! Strong argument overall, maybe the only major disagreement here is with nuclear energy. Here in Finland electricity is some of the cheapest in Europe and while it’s not entirely due to nuclear that is a key factor for us in self-reliance and energy security especially when you’re going down the renewable road, because you do need some kind of a stable backbone for days where solar and wind just don’t produce enough, at least until there are better storage options. There’s a huge need to optimize the energy mix with renewables because it’s unsustainable to have these massive price fluctuations currently and I don’t see many solutions currently that have more potential than Nuclear, especially if we can make SMR’s a reality. I am of course aware also that Nuclear by itself definitely isn’t a cheap way to produce electricity, but I believe especially SMR’s and other advancements can do a lot there.
I think CDU is pretty much middle to right ground of kokoomus and persu (both more right wing Finnish parties). And CDU has already taken some AfD point and looking like they would be happy to work with AfD, as kokoomus was first very anti persu, before last election where they set government together. CDU with other partners would be "fine", but I think everyone's worried is they wanna stay in power and happily take AfD to guarantee their government position.
I see, I think the consensus view here is quite left-leaning so maybe that’s where the negative view comes from. I’m more Kokoomus leaning myself so I don’t see it as bad but I can understand there’s a lot of polarization going on right now.
Yes. Question is - who? All parties suck across the board for me.
I can't vote right because I'm a human
I can't vote left because I got too much money for that
I can't vote black or red because nothing will happen or change, the country will just keep declining
I can't vote green because these people are actively ruining the country
I can't vote for one of the smaller parties that would actually fit much much better but they got 0 chance of getting into the parliament and I might aswell toss my vote out the window.
It's just such a sad state of affairs right now. Every major party fucks me sideways one way or the other lmao.
So you don't want to vote left because you only think about yourself but also red wouldn't change anything which you don't like. And greens ruin the country? Are you gonna spout shit about the Heizungsgesetz next?
You are making more than 7000€ a month or have more than a million bucks? It's time to pay your fair share.
Dunno, I'm looking at my tax statement for 2023 and I paid a metric fuckton of taxes already. I already paid my fair share.
I agree with you and don't feel that I'd support one of the big parties enough to cast my vote for them in a situation where it's pest vs cholera. But with the right being so clearly against humanity and democratic values I think the time has come to choose either pest or cholera over evil itself. Usually I voted for a small party that falls under the 5% but this time I won't, just because I'd rather cast my vote for a party that clearly positions themselves against the right and I can agree with in some ways than to not give it at all or cast it without any impact in the actual government.
So this is the modern voter suppression, everything sucks, nothing will change, so better to not vote at all. And who will gain in that?
Im not saying who you should vote, there is different tools to figure out what party fits your world views.
I'm not saying that I won't vote at all. I'm just saying that I'm having a very hard time deciding who to vote for.
Fill that, tweak values and do the parties main lines match your world views.
https://www.wahl-o-mat.de/
Not voting is accapting the extreme parties taking power.
Don't worry, I've done that already. The problem is that the parties at the top for me are all tiny parties without a realistic chance to win. If I only filter by parties that were elected last time, the first party is ... FDP at 55.7%. Then SPD at 54.3%. All other parties are below 50%.
It's tough electing a party that way.