<P> Invalid votes count as non votes in the financing of the parties . The parties do not receive any money for them . As the party's financing is capped and the total sum is regularly being utilised, the discrepancy of valid votes for parties who take part in financing is practically low . A small amount of invalid votes is generally beneficial for parties with above average fund raising (membership fees included) seeing that more money remains in the bonus fund . </P> <P> Seats in the German Bundestag distributed by regional lists are only given to parties surpassing a five percent election threshold of the federally valid second votes . Alternatively, if a party wins at least three constituencies, a party still gains seats by proportional representation according to the number of second votes they received . Those second votes for parties that meet neither requirement will not be taken into account for the distribution of seats among the rest of the parties . The three - constituency rule favours those smaller parties with a regional stronghold . For example the German Party, which gained 15 seats in the 1953 elections with only 3.3% of the second votes and ten constituencies . In 1957, they gained 17 seats in the German Bundestag with 3.4% of the second votes and six constituencies . </P> <P> In 1994, a party benefited from the basic mandate clause which had not been enacted since the 1957 election . The PDS won four direct mandates in Berlin, enabling them to send 30 delegates to the Bundestag, despite the fact that they had only 4.4 percent of the second votes . They only had the status of a political group, rather than a parliamentary party . In order to have the particular powers pertaining to this important political status, they would have had to exceed the election threshold . </P> <P> The clause is meant to minimise the risk of party fragmentation, which partially caused the incapacitation of the parliament in the Weimar Republic . The clause is not explicitly mentioned in the constitution as this could cause a conflict with the fundamental principle of equal votes, which states that each vote must have equal weight . However, the general consensus is that the clause is important for the stability of the party system, the capacity of the parliament and the government and overall for the political stability of the state . Thus, a balance must be achieved between the two existing constitutional objectives . The Federal Constitutional Court approves of the threshold clause, arguing that it is allowed to violate a constitutional principle within certain limits, if this is essential to achieve a more important constitutional objective such as the adherence to a principle of electoral law . Because of this, the Federal Constitutional Court allows the threshold clause to be maximally five percent . Thus the legislator has no possibility of increasing it . </P>

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