Sense of Deja Vu?

[minionofmidas]

In Dresden, the NPD direct candidate just died at the age of 43. Elections in the constituency will be held several weeks after the general. Reminds me of the UK this spring.

Baden-Württemberg state's minister for employment and welfare, Andreas Renner (CDU), said in a small-size meeting that George W Bush "belongs shot down". By which of course he didn't mean murdered, but forced to resign.
During the election three years ago, we had a major brouhaha about a similarly flippant remark against Bush, by a federal minister, in a similar small political meeting covered only by local journalists, in the same state. This one's not going to get similar attention, though. For one thing, it's not related to a major foreign affairs crisis such as the Iraq War was.

[freek]

In Dresden, the NPD direct candidate just died at the age of 43. Elections in the constituency will be held several weeks after the general. Reminds me of the UK this spring.

Although in this case, the Zweitstimmen in the Dresden district might flip a possible CDU/FDP-majority into a minority.

How many seats at most could change hands by tactical voting in this Dresden district?

[jimrtex]

In Dresden, the NPD direct candidate just died at the age of 43. Elections in the constituency will be held several weeks after the general. Reminds me of the UK this spring.

So voters there only get one vote?  But don't the proportional seats take into account the constituency seats?  Does one of the proportional members lose his seat after the special election?

[minionofmidas]

No, they'll get two votes just like everybody else, and the results will be included just like everybody elses. They'll just vote two weeks later. THe exact distribution of seats can't be determined until after they voted, though of course near-complete partial results will be available long before.
Not[/] hoping for an absolute cliffhanger on election night...

On a side note...another oddity of German election law is that, if an independent candidate wins direct election (never happened except in 49, when rules were different), the Zweitstimmen of his supporters are discounted.
Fulda MP Martin Hohmann, who was expelled from the CDU for antisemitic remarks but remained sitting as an independent, is standing in his old constituency, and observers (in what's usually the safest CDU seat in Hessen) are expecting a close three-way between Hohmann, the official CDU candidate, and the SPD candidate. That could get ugly. If Hohmann wins the CDU stands to lose tens of thousands of votes on a technicality. They've only woken up to that fact a couple of days ago...