Germany’s election system is a scandal

Two million people won’t be represented by the candidate who won their local race.

With so much happening in the world, you would think that German politicians would at least be able to agree on the fundamentals so that they can get on with dealing with issues like Russia, Trump, climate change and all the rest of it.

Instead, tinkering with the voting system has become an obsession of governments, an effort that wastes both the time of Bundestag lawmakers and - inevitably - the Constitutional Court, which is asked for its opinion every time the rules change.

It all started in 2012 with a bizarre decision by the Constitutional Court - Germany’s highest legal authority - to annul the system that had existed for over sixty years beforehand. The judges decided that the voting system wasn’t producing results that properly represented the will of the people and told the Bundestag to come up with a better one.

This decision was silly - there is nothing in the constitution that sets out how an election should be run beyond it being free, fair and the ballot being secret. None…