A primer for the German election
On February 23, Germans will elect a new parliament (Bundestag).
Commerzbank Economic Research
02/10/2025
1) What will happen at election day?
The polling stations will be open from 8 am until 6 pm. Immediately after the polling stations close, the TV stations will publish predictions for the election outcome based on a survey of voters outside the polling stations. These forecasts have proven to be fairly accurate in the past. From around 6:20 p.m., the TV stations will first publish “trend projections” and then the first projections, which are increasingly based on the counting of the votes cast. The election result is often as good as certain by 7 p.m. at the latest.
There are usually exceptions when one or more parties are close to the 5% threshold (see also point 2). This is because the shares of the other parties in the seats can still shift to such an extent that certain coalitions become possible or impossible.
For full text see attached PDF-Version.
