The Constituency Commission is a body of experts independent of party policy and not bound by instructions which does the essential preparatory work on the basis of which the German Bundestag decides on the delimitation of constituencies in the next Bundestag election. It is appointed by the Federal President as permanent Constituency Commission.
In elections to the German Bundestag, 299 of the deputies are elected in the constituencies according to the principles of relative majority voting based on the system of two votes as laid down in the Federal Elections Act (Section 1 (2), Section 5). The territory of the Federal Republic of Germany shall therefore be subdivided into 299 constituencies which should have the same size, as far as possible.
The task of the Constituency Commission is to report on changes of population figures in the electoral area and to state what modifications of the electoral area structure – if any – it deems necessary as a consequence. In its report, the Commission may propose modifications for other reasons, too. The Constituency Commission shall report to the Federal Ministry of the Interior within fifteen months after the electoral period has begun, in the present electoral period by 27 January 2011. The Federal Ministry of the Interior shall then submit the report to the German Bundestag; it is published both as a Bundestag printed paper and in the Federal Gazette. The composition of the Constituency Commission, its tasks and the principles according to which the constituencies shall be delimited are laid down in Section 3 of the Federal Elections Act.
The German Bundestag alone decides on any modifications of constituency boundaries by means of a
federal law.
The following short article on the Constituency Commission contains information on its composition and appointment, its tasks, the principles of constituency delimitation, the report of the Constituency Commission and publications on the subject.
Wahlkreiseinteilung für die Bundestagswahl 2013: Die Wahlkreiskommission (PDF, 65 KB)
Legal basis
Section 3 of the Federal Elections Act (BWG)
Last update: January 2011
