That's a big parliament

The German parliament is a big one, they have some 600 representatives for a country of about 80 million people.

Imagine a U.S. Congress of 2000 reps, wouldn't that be fun?

The big news of last night's elections is that the small "business" party, also called "the liberals", which is  more along the lines of the British liberal party, finally got kicked out of the national parliament because they remained under the threshold of 5% nation wide and had not "direct" win either.

The German system is complicated. They have districts, and you vote for a person running in that district. Simple majority, and they are in. 

They also have a second vote for "a party", and that one kicks in when a party gets above the 5%.  The state organizations of the parties draw up a list of candidates, with the open seats in parliament being filled starting at the top. These lists are drawn up by the state party organization, no direct voter input needed or wanted.

The bigger parties thus can pretty much guarantee their top brass a seat in parliament even if they get beaten in a district.

So, while Germans follow the "one man, two votes" philosophy, there are many positions not open to voting. 

All those sheriffs, DAs, school boards, even coroners who get their job through a popular vote in the U.S. -- these are plain old professions here.

Which does not mean that politics plays no role. Civil service careers benefit greatly from being a member of one of the big parties, it generally does not matter all that much which of the big players because they will respect each other's turf to some degree.

With the outcome as close as it is, Ms. Merkel's party just missing a majority of seats, pundits have their work cut out for them for a couple of months.

And the new Euro skeptic party? They remained just under the 5%.