nam 22 uu 4500 10.59704/d19bafef7a13c215 DE-Verfassungsblog cr||||| 260915s2026||||xx#|||||o|||| ||| 0|eng|| 10.59704/d19bafef7a13c215 doi eng 342 23 Khaitan, Tarunabh Author aut (orcid)0000-0003-3661-4832 Indirect Militant Democracy - What German Runoffs Tell Us About Ranked Choice Voting Khaitan, Tarunabh Verfassungsblog 2026-09-15 Text txt rdacontent Computermedien c rdamedia Online-Ressource cr rdacarrier In June 2023, the AfD won the district administration of Sonneberg. Between the first round and the runoff, the AfD’s vote share rose from 46.7 to 52.8 per cent, a gain of 6.1 percentage points. Its CDU opponent went from 35.7 to 47.2 per cent, gaining 11.5 points. The AfD won, but its eleven-point lead almost halved. Requiring it to compete for support beyond its initial electorate made victory harder. The episode recommends a form of indirect militant democracy: electoral rules that make limited appeal beyond a party’s committed supporters a disadvantage. CC BY-SA 4.0 AfD Election law Militant Democracy Party bans proportional representation Max Steinbeis Verfassungsblog gGmbH Verfassungsblog 2366-7044 https://verfassungsblog.de/indirect-militant-democracy/ raw object