2009 State and Federal elections in Germany

[minionofmidas]

Oh, OWL's still lurking on here!

Why'd you move to that corner of the world?

[Hans-im-Glück]

I'll cast my first vote for the CSU (District 238 Coburg-Kronach, CSU+19 in 2005) Same candidates = similar results this time, I guess. Last time the SPD won this district was back in 1998. The victorious SPD candidate is running again this year, but now for the Left Party .

Second vote: Likely FDP (Tactical voting, I'm no big fan of the FDP)


My former district 134 Herford-Minden-Lübbecke II should be much more interesting. SPD+6.5 in 2005, but the long-time SPD incumbent is not seeking reelection. With the long-time CDU MP (list) resigning in 2007 we get fresh candidates for both major parties and I expect a close race this time.

Hello neighbor

I'm from the district HOF. The constituency Coburg-Kronach isn't so conservative you think. I don't think that the SPD have in this year a chance, but this is not CSU-land

The candidate of the left Uwe Hiksch isn't a bad man. He is a man with ideals. I like him.

[minionofmidas]

Ah yeah, that was the name. Defected to the PDS during the 98-02 term. I forget what about.

[CO-OWL]

Oh, OWL's still lurking on here!

Why'd you move to that corner of the world?

Job. I chose to work for one of Coburg's big insurance companies .


Why the Piratenpartei this time? Are you sure CDU/FDP won't get a majority anyway?

[CO-OWL]

Hello neighbor

I'm from the district HOF. The constituency Coburg-Kronach isn't so conservative you think. I don't think that the SPD have in this year a chance, but this is not CSU-land

The candidate of the left Uwe Hiksch isn't a bad man. He is a man with ideals. I like him.

Hello

Yea, I know. On the local level it's a very different picture. But I don't think the SPD will regain their former rural Protestant strongholds in Franconia in state/federal elections.

Concerning Hiksch: the local conservative newspaper calls him a "Marxist"...

[minionofmidas]

Sure? No. But if they don't they won't fail by one vote. Least of all a list vote.
And I think the Pirates'll surprise positively on election night (though 5% will be a bit too steep) and are probably here to stay. (Have you seen the results of that German YouthVote Project, whatever it was called?)
And then, of course, there are all the numerous little reasons to be pissed off (a little) at Left and Greens. Such as, the continued talk of a traffic light on the Saar. Such as (something of a last straw) some fairly stupid dismissive remarks by Cohn-Bendit about the Pirates. Sounded to me like someone's scared and blaming the messenger.
And then it just so happened that I was leaning Green but had still not ruled out Left and Pirates, and talked to my mother who was thinking about the SPD (her default choice. That she didn't feel like, thinking Steinmeier less competent and only slightly less rightwing than Merkel) and the Pirates (just as the only acceptable alternative. The reasons to rule out the Greens being 100% irrational and tied up with my parents' separation, but hey, that's the way it is.) So we sort of struck a deal.

[Hans-im-Glück]

Hello neighbor

I'm from the district HOF. The constituency Coburg-Kronach isn't so conservative you think. I don't think that the SPD have in this year a chance, but this is not CSU-land

The candidate of the left Uwe Hiksch isn't a bad man. He is a man with ideals. I like him.

Hello

Yea, I know. On the local level it's a very different picture. But I don't think the SPD will regain their former rural Protestant strongholds in Franconia in state/federal elections.

Concerning Hiksch: the local conservative newspaper calls him a "Marxist"...

Hiksch is a Marxist, this is no problem for me ; but when is must choose between a Democratic Marxist and incompetent people like Schnappauf (and it gives many Schnappauf in the CSU), he was from Kronach, then i like the Marxist more.

The rural Protestant region in Upper Franconia is drifting to the right, that's true. The Porcelain and textile industries collapes and many workers go to other parts of germany. But Upper Franconia will be never upper Bavaria

[Hash]

Should we do about results? Last time round we just did all that here, but the forum's changed since then in quite a few ways (more posters for international elections, tendency to spend longer discussing results in the weeks after an election, etc) and doing a results thread's been the norm. And we've just hit 59 pages.

A separate thread would be much better.

Anyways, Hashemite's Official Endorsement™: Pirate Party

[DL]

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a flurry of final polls published yesterday and today. All we have is that Forsa poll pointing to a dead heat. What's with the other companies?

[Meeker]

I took one of those tests to determine your party affiliation from Spiegel. I had Greens first by a bit and then The Left, Pirates and SPD behind in pretty close succession of one another.

These things of course aren't really great/accurate determiners of how one would actually vote/does vote, but nonetheless this one seemed like one of the better ones: http://wahlomat.spiegel.de/bundestagswahl2009/main_app.php?

[Tender Branson]

Here we go !

For our American and other English-speaking members, here's the official results page from the Bundeswahlleiter (Federal Elections Clerk), with results coming in right after 6pm local time (12am Eastern):

http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/en/bundestagswahlen/BTW_BUND_09/ergebnisse/

As for my vote: If I were living in Germany, I`d probably vote for the SPD candidate in the direct vote and Green or Pirate in the list vote.

I'm surprised that there hasn't been a flurry of final polls published yesterday and today. All we have is that Forsa poll pointing to a dead heat. What's with the other companies?

You can take a look at the most recent polls from every institute here:

http://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/index.htm

[minionofmidas]

Just voted. My polling station is now part of the Forsa exit poll/projection thingee.

[Franzl]

Polls have been open for 80 minutes now....and I'm drinking a cup of coffee so I don't make any mistakes at the polling station...

[Franzl]

I voted.

district vote: Patricia Lips (CDU)
party list vote: CDU

[BenNebbich]

i voted too.

i'm a beekeeper so i voted for the green party.

but i expect a 'black&yellow' coalition.

[Tender Branson]

Some reports about turnout:

Turnout down by about 5% in Sachsen and Sachsen-Anhalt.

Slightly lower turnout also in Bayern, Hessen and Schleswig-Holstein, allthough turnout for the state elections there is up by 9% compared with 2005.

[Harry Hayfield]

I took one of those tests to determine your party affiliation from Spiegel. I had Greens first by a bit and then The Left, Pirates and SPD behind in pretty close succession of one another.

These things of course aren't really great/accurate determiners of how one would actually vote/does vote, but nonetheless this one seemed like one of the better ones: http://wahlomat.spiegel.de/bundestagswahl2009/main_app.php?

My score
66 out of 86 points The Welfare Party   
60 of 86 points THE LEFT   
56 out of 86 points GREEN   
56 out of 86 points FAMILY   
48 out of 86 points PIRATES   
46 out of 86 points SPD   
37 out of 86 points FDP   
29 of 86 points CDU / CSU 

[Tender Branson]

Maybe it`s too nice weather to go voting today. Blue sky, almost 25°C warm and sunny in almost all of Germany and Austria. Probably people are out hiking and enjoying the final days of summer, instead of voting ...

[minionofmidas]

Yeah, quite possibly the last sunday of summer. Bad or (worse) great weather is traditionally a bad sign for the SPD.

Turnout, Frankfurt 12am (sample) 24.1%, down 4.1 points.

[Tender Branson]

Hahaha, cool picture: PM of Schleswig-Holstein, Peter Harry Carstensen (CDU):



And the voters in Bavaria:

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just...

[Tender Branson]

Apparently, there are already votes vounted in district 115 (Krefeld II - Wesel II):

Siegmund Ehrmann (SPD) defeats Kerstin Radomski (CDU).

In 2005, Ehrmann won the district 51-36.

http://www.rp-online.de/public/article/moers/762896/Es-sieht-nach-Erhmann-aus.html

[minionofmidas]

Just...

Just what?

Turnout looks horrendous. This won't be good news at 6pm.

Apparently, there are already votes vounted in district 115 (Krefeld II - Wesel II):

I'm not sure that's really what the article says. The wording is sort of diffuse. *If* there are any already (illegally) counted votes, they're obviously postal votes.

[Tender Branson]

Turnout looks horrendous. This won't be good news at 6pm.

Yeah.

In Sachsen, which already has 14:00 numbers, it's down by 8% - from 43% to 35%.

Hessen doesn't look good either (-5%ish).

[minionofmidas]

Frankfurt, 2pm
41.0 (-4.9)