How The Bundestag Voted Screensaver
The How The Bundestag Voted screensaver shows named votes in the German Bundestag, read live and key-less from abgeordnetenwatch. It's free, runs in your browser, and ESC exits.
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Press ESC to leave fullscreen. Settings are saved in your browser only.
How the How The Bundestag Voted screensaver works
The saver reads the source described above and draws it on a canvas — no account, no tracking.
Named votes in the German Bundestag, read live and key-less from abgeordnetenwatch.de. The fourth column is the one people forget — members who did not vote at all regularly outnumber the no votes, and a bill can pass with well under half the house behind it.
It refreshes on a schedule, so what you see stays current.
Colours and any options can be changed in settings; nothing is stored beyond your own browser.
Reading recorded votes in the German Bundestag
abgeordnetenwatch.de is a German platform for tracking politicians and parliaments, with profiles of members of the Bundestag, the European Parliament and the state parliaments. The data behind this saver covers named votes in the Bundestag, the lower house of the German parliament, where each member’s choice is recorded individually.
A named vote (namentliche Abstimmung) can be demanded by a parliamentary group or by at least 5 percent of the members. Each member’s vote is identified from voting cards, and the result is noted in the stenographic minutes, so named votes are the exception rather than every decision.
For each vote, members fall into four groups: yes, no, abstained, and did not vote. The last is easy to overlook and it is the point of this display. Not voting is different from abstaining, which is a recorded position. The data does not say why a member did not vote. Totals therefore rarely equal the full membership, and a count of absentees says nothing on its own about attendance habits, since only some votes are named ones.
A worked example
Named votes in the German Bundestag, read live and key-less from abgeordnetenwatch.de. The fourth column is the one people forget — members who did not vote at all regularly outnumber the no votes, and a bill can pass with well under half the house behind it.
Settings & tips
- Accent and Background recolour the display.
- Every value on screen comes from the live source — nothing is simulated.
- Press ESC to leave fullscreen.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this real data?
- Yes — it comes from the source named on this page and is refreshed on a schedule.
- Is a key needed?
- No. This source is fully key-less.
- Is it free?
- Yes, and it runs entirely in your browser.
- What is a named vote?
- A vote in which each member’s choice is recorded under their name. In the Bundestag a parliamentary group or at least 5 percent of the members can demand one.
- Is abstaining the same as not voting?
- No. An abstention is a recorded position, while a non-vote means the member did not take part. This display keeps them as separate groups.
- Why do totals differ between votes?
- Attendance varies from vote to vote, and the number of members can differ between legislative terms.