p.s. Important voting tip from many contributors:

1. Use first vote to choose your favourite candidate from those likely to win in your particular voting district. It doesn't matter if their party is small nationally, the candidate can still get in if they are popular in your district.

2. Use second vote to choose your favourite from parties likely to get over 5% of the vote.

If you do both these things, it will make your vote most effective 👍

@FediTips @jssfr
That doesn’t seem correct.
The 1st vote is for the district representative - which is first-past-the-post and thus voting for a party that has a realistic chance of getting to the majority in the district is sensible - especially if it’s about preventing another party from gaining the seat. In some districts (such as mine) parties that have a small share of the national vote can still have a strong local footprint and there the 1st vote is a good way to support them - but that’s not true for most districts.

The 2nd vote is proportional, so there small parties will have as much a chance as those with a large vote share. Nonetheless the party still needs to cross the 5% threshold, so voting for a party polling at below 3% is not a great strategy if one would want to prevent the AfD from gaining seats.