Die Wahl / Elections

About a week ago, Heidelberg and other cities around Germany experienced the climax of many months of election postering. Apparently the election on June 7 was quite a big deal - representatives for the European Parliament as well as state and local assemblies were elected. I as a non-German was also being persuaded into this mass political movement - there is apparently a "Foreigner's Council" here. Although I thought it would be interested to get a taste of German politics, I didn't think it would be fair to influence the results since I'm only going to be here for a few more months anyway.

The Germans (as well as many other European countries I'm guessing) really don't seem to take the multi-party system very lightly. This seems to be exercised to quite an extreme. Even with the 5% rule (where only parties garnering more than 5% of the popular vote are allowed to sit in Parliament), there are already 5-6 parties swarming around at the national level. On top of this, there are parties for narrower causes or groups of constituents: seniors' parties, animal protection parties, but also the far more radical but at the moment rather harmless groups, such as various Neo-Nazi parties. In Germany, the mentality seems to be, form a party to let others' know you as a group exist, whereas in the States, the mentality seems to be to speak up for your interests within your large party. For political effectiveness, I'm not sure which is better, although choosing a small, narrower party over a more all-encompassing one probably is seen as less optimal since the smaller party is unlikely to win, and therefore one's voice is effectively lost.

The complexities of the voting system here (total of 40 votes, can give a max of 3 votes to one particular candidate, etc.) leaves me wondering: to what extent is an election determined or at least influenced by the voting laws under which it operates? (nevermind the question of enfranchisement or participation - just vote tallying itself). I bet quite a number of "gray cases" have emerged in which many people were squeezed in or out on the basis of a few votes that were not necessarily given "consciously" or with strong purpose.