Highest courts on electoral laws

The German Constitutional Court today ruled that the German electoral law has to be reformed until 2011 because it allows "negative votes". This is the result of a mixed procedure with a combination of proportional and first-past-the-post voting further complicated by a federal multi-state system where more proportional votes for a party in one federal state can lead to a loss of overall seats in parliament.

On Tuesday, the European Court of Human Rights (the ECtHR is not a court of the European Union!) will issue a (final) Grand Chamber judgement concerning the 10%-threshold in the Turkish electoral law (see press release). So far, the Court has not seen a violation in the European Convention of Human Rights by this threshold and we will see, whether this position will be confirmed on Tuesday.

UPDATE
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The Grand Chamber has found that the 10% threshold is no violation of the European Convention of Human Rights.