1920 German federal election

6 June 1920 (1920-06-06)
All 459 seats in the Reichstag 230 seats needed for a majority
Registered	35,949,774 ( 2.3%)
Turnout	79.2% ( 3.8pp)
First party Second party Third party   Leader Otto Wels Hermann Müller Arthur Crispien Oskar Hergt Party SPD USPD DNVP Last election 37.9%, 165 seats 7.6%, 22 seats 10.3%, 44 seats Seats won 103 83 71 Seat change 62 61 27 Popular vote 6,179,991 4,971,220 4,249,100 Percentage 21.9% 17.6% 15.1% Swing 16.0pp 10.0pp 4.8pp   Fourth party Fifth party Sixth party   DDP Leader Gustav Stresemann Karl Trimborn Carl Wilhelm Petersen Party DVP Centre DDP Last election 4.4%, 19 seats 19.7%, 91 seats 18.6%, 75 seats Seats won 65 64 39 Seat change 46 27 36 Popular vote 3,919,446 3,845,001 2,333,741 Percentage 13.9% 13.6% 8.3% Swing 9.5pp 6.1pp 10.3pp
Results by constituency Results by district and independent city
Government before election First Müller cabinet SPD–DDP–Z Government after election Fehrenbach cabinet Z–DDP–DVP

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Federal elections were held in Germany on 6 June 1920. Territorial disputes meant that voting was delayed in East Prussia and Schleswig-Holstein until 20 February 1921, and until 19 November 1922 in Oppeln.^[1] The Social Democratic Party remained the largest party in the Reichstag although it lost over a third of its seats.^[2] Voter turnout was about 79.2%.^[3]

Electoral system

The members of the Reichstag were elected by two methods. A total of 35 multi-member constituencies were to have representatives elected via party-list proportional representation. A party was entitled to a seat via this method for every 60,000 votes they obtained in a constituency. At the second level, the 35 constituencies were combined into 17 constituency associations. A party could claim an additional seat if its vote remainder in the electoral district after distribution of seats by the first method was more than 30,000. As seats were allocated based on vote count, there was not a set number of seats in the chamber.^[4]

People who were under the age of 25, incapacitated according to the Civil Code, who were under guardianship or provisional guardianship, or who had lost their civil rights of honour after a criminal court ruling were not eligible to vote.

Results

References