Talk:2017 German federal election

Merkel is not elected as chancellor for fourth term.

New coalition is not formed yet.

More suitable infobox?

At the bottom of the current infobox, it says "Elected chancellor". While correct, this can misleadingly give the impression that Merkel was elected chancellor *in this election*. She was, of course, elected by parliament (Bundestag) months later. I think it would be better to use the infobox for legislative elections, which avoids this wording. See for instance Dutch general election, 2017. KarlFrei (talk) 13:05, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I think that would be preferable. The infobox is currently so large that it's not really fulfilling its duty as a summary. Number 57 13:14, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Firstly, such an interpretation of "elected" is too literal. As pointed out at Talk:Italian general election, 2018, "PM/Chancellor after election" may not necessarily refer to the one elected as a result of the election (for the 2018 Italian case it was very clear: Conte was the PM who ended up being appointed and elected as a result of the election, but the immediate PM after the election for some months was Gentiloni).

Secondly, you do not need to change the infobox to have such a minor change; all you need is to use the | posttitle = syntax. Impru20^talk 14:48, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Constituency information in the infobox

Whoever keeps reverting the infobox to the Proportional-results-only version, please stop. Having both Constituency and Proportional results is common practice in other mixed member elections (e.g. 2016 Scottish Parliament election, 2020 South Korean legislative election, 2017 Japanese general election, 2020 New Zealand general election) and German election articles should be in line with that. Glide08 (talk) 16:08, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

(User:Nillurcheier)

While I'm not opposed in principle to including them, no other German election article - federal or state - currently displays constituency results in the infobox. At the moment, this is a unilateral change to a single article which makes it inconsistent with all others, and is likely to be confusing for people browsing through them. There are no grounds for this change to be made without discussion and affirmative agreement first. Introducing this would necessarily affect dozens of other articles as well, so it ought to be considered carefully.

To address the argument that Germany should be brought "in line with" other mixed-member election articles, it's worth noting that constituency results were only introduced to infoboxes of South Korea, Japan, and New Zealand in recent months, so it's not like the German articles are violating some long-standing convention regarding mixed-member elections. In fact, as it stands, only a minority of mixed-member elections do this: others not displaying constituency results in the infobox include but are not limited to Italy, Hungary, Lithuania, Pakistan, Russia, and Ukraine. Of course, you can argue that perhaps they should, but the bottom line is that there is no standard that German articles need to adhere to.

In addition, constituency results are markedly less important in MMP elections compared to MMM (parallel voting) elections. It's more significant to show them in Japan or South Korea, for instance, where the overall outcome of the election (i.e. the overall distribution of seats) is determined primarily by the constituencies. In MMP, the constituency results are theoretically irrelevant to the overall distribution of seats (this is not always the case, but this is much more pronounced in Scotland and New Zealand, which unlike Germany lack leveling seats). Sources covering German elections, in both English and German, rarely include constituency results because the proportional result is what actually determines the seat distribution.

I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with including the constituency results, but I question whether they are important enough to justify including in a German context. And to include them in a manner suggesting they're equal the proportional results, without clarification that they have no bearing on the overall outcome of the election, could be confusing to those unfamiliar with the electoral system. Erinthecute (talk) 01:41, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Regarding Pakistan and Lithuania, at least: Pakistan doesn't use an "orthodox" MMP, and the proportional seats there are decided based off how many FPTP seats each party got. Lithuania does have two votes, but they use the Infobox legislative election template, which is a lot less flexible than Infobox election - and a two-round system for the single-member district which could complicate matters further. And Ukraine's constituency results are unavilable for some reason. Glide08 (talk) 09:19, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Personally I don't think it's an improvement. The proportional results are more of a reflection of the nationwide vote and the infobox is already too bloated (it's more than two screens long even even at a very high resolution). If possible, can we remove some of the information that isn't crucial to the election results, such as leaders' seat (which itself takes up four rows), leader since to make it a bit more compact? Number 57 09:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

After comparing, I agree. The box was already very bloated, but is especially so with the constituency results. Showing only proportional results, and removing the rows for the leaders' seats and tenure, greatly improves readability. I think it's important to remember that the infobox is a brief summary of the election, providing the most important information. It doesn't need to include all the details - that's what the article is for. Erinthecute (talk) 10:24, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

@Glide08: and others: Yes I reverted this change and still think, it should be reverted again. Some arguments have already been mentioned. Inconsistency versus the articles of the preceeding elections in Germany. Overloading the infobox. But the main reason to revert is that in these election seats are distributed according to popular votes (Zweitstimmen) only. Constituancy votes (Erststimmen) have fully been compensated by balancing seats (Ausgleichmandaten) hence have not contributed to parliament's seat distribution. So I'd call it biased to present relevenat and irrelevant votes on exaclty the same level in the infobox. This will change a little in 2021. Maybe we have to restart this discussion then. But for the time being, please revert to the clean and unbiased version. --Nillurcheier (talk) 11:52, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

"Clean and unbiased" is a loaded term. Also, the constituency votes still contribute to the seat distribution in Parliament because they're the benchmark balancing seats are measured against. Glide08 (talk) 12:24, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The number of constituencies won by each party is the benchmark, not the votes cast for them. Important distinction. Erinthecute (talk) 22:30, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Since nobody (except of course the author) supported this change within one week, I propose to revert it. Nillurcheier (talk) 15:49, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

I agree. Erinthecute (talk) 00:18, 13 January 2021 (UTC)