The Bundestag mandate won directly in a constituency is considered particularly valuable under the stipulations of democracy because the voters have voted for someone who is at least geographically closer to them than a list candidate.
The draft of the traffic light for a new electoral law with the aim of reducing the size of the Bundestag means a very fundamental change in this respect.
In future, the number of mandates of a party will only be determined by the "main vote" (previously second vote) for the parties.
If more constituencies are won by a party than were allocated based on the result of the main vote, a constituency victory does not automatically count.
In the first draft of the new electoral law, there was still a variant of a substitute vote, with which the constituency winner was then to be determined.
But that met with resistance in the traffic light coalition.
Now a constituency should no longer be allocated at all, to nobody, if the main vote result is not sufficient for this.
On the one hand, this means that the big stage, on which the parties advertise themselves nationally and nationally, would probably be more important than the regional one.
This could displease many applicants, but also voters.
On the other hand, it could mean that constituency candidates look after the voters even more intensively in order to get hold of one in any case with a scarce number of main vote mandates for their own party through their good result.