Figure S.11.1     Expected Support for Social Democracy, by Number of Ballots Awarded, 1909

 

As explained in Chapter 11 of Red Saxony, statisticians in the Royal Saxon Statistical Office and the Saxon Ministry of the Interior were busy through 1907–1908, and into January 1909, attempting to determine what percentage of the popular vote would fall to Social Democratic candidates after a plural suffrage was introduced for Saxon Landtag elections.

 

The final legislation of January 1909—which formally became law on 5 May 1909—provided up to 4 ballots to enfranchised Saxon electors. A single “basic” ballot could be supplemented with 1, 2, or 3 supplemental ballots, awarded on the basis of income, salary, property ownership, and age.

 

The following table is a transcription of a handwritten memorandum (facsimile below) sent by the director of the Royal Saxon Statistical Office, Dr. Eugen Würzburger, to the Ministry of the Interior (where Würzburger’s principal associate, Privy Counselor Georg Heink, worked). Both men served not only Saxony’s government leader, Wilhelm von Hohenthal und Bergen, but also the parties in the lower house of the Landtag and the Constitutional Committee there: the latter had been debating the future suffrage reform since late 1907.

 

 

In this table, Dr. Würzburger summarized his conclusions about, first, which groups of voters would be most likely to vote for Social Democrats, and second, how the awarding of extra ballots to certain voters would hinder or benefit the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). Based on those conclusions, the government and the members of the Constitutional Committee believed it would be possible to limit Social Democratic deputies in the new Landtag—in the first election after the suffrage reform—to a caucus of about 15 deputies, in a lower chamber that held 91 deputies.

 

Based on previous Landtag and Reichstag elections, Würzburger estimated the number of ballots that would be cast by non-socialist and socialist supporters in each group if, according to past experience, approximately 55-56 percent of voters (columns 8-9) supported Social Democratic candidates, or if a slightly lower proportion of voters (52-53 percent, in columns 10-11) did so.

 

Reading this table from top to bottom, Würzburger estimated the likely proportion of socialist supporters among those entitled to cast 4, 3, 2, or 1 ballot in the next Landtag election.

 

Among (A.) four-ballot voters, he estimated that only about 2-10 percent would support Social Democracy. Among voters in the top end of this range (5-10 percent) he included four-ballot voters who received their fourth ballot only because they were at least 50 years of age and thus qualified for the extra “age” ballot.

 

Among (B.) three-ballot voters, Würzburger estimated that roughly 5-20 percent would support Social Democracy.

 

Among (C.) two-ballot voters—less privileged voters—he estimated that between 17 and 40 percent would vote for a Social Democrat. Again, voters who qualified for a second ballot only because they were at least 50 years old were the most likely voters in this group to support Social Democracy.

 

Lastly, among (D.) one-ballot voters—the least privileged group—Würzburger estimated that the proportion who voted for a Social Democrat would be much higher—in the 82-87 percent range.

 

In the last line of his table, Würzburger added up the total number of ballots likely to be cast by socialist and non-socialist voters in each of his four categories (A.-D.) Taking account of the fact that most four-ballot voters would support a non-socialist candidate and most one-ballot voters would support a socialist one, he concluded that roughly 35-36 percent of all ballots cast would fall to socialist candidates.

 

Despite seriously misjudging the number of socialist supporters among certain groups and subgroups listed in this table, Würzburger’s two most important conclusions were surprisingly accurate:

 

1.      He estimated that roughly 52-56 of all voters would support Social Democracy. In the Landtag election of 1909, 53.8 percent of voters did so.

 

2.      He estimated that those socialist voters would cast ballots that constituted roughly 34-36 percent of all ballots cast. In the Landtag election of 1909, 38.7 percent of ballots were cast for socialist candidates.

 

When the voting was over, an even more important forecast had been proven faulty. For complicated reasons explained in Chapter 11 of Red Saxony, not 15 but rather 25 Social Democratic deputies were elected to the Saxon Landtag in October-November 1909. This was still far short of a majority in a parliament of 91 seats, but the SPD caucus was now almost as large as those of the Conservative and National Liberal parties (28 deputies each). The plural suffrage legislated in January 1909 had massively disadvantaged socialists at the polls later that year—but not as massively as expected. According to the enemies of Social Democracy, who believed that no more than 15 socialist deputies were tolerable in their state parliament, the statistical computations provided by Würzburger and Heink were disastrously wrong.

 

This table has been left in the original German to avoid ambiguity or misunderstanding. The tabular format of the handwritten original has been preserved as far as possible.

Personengruppen	Geschätzte absolute Zahl 1897, 1899, 1901	Berechnet für 1908 (mit 15 Prozent Zuschlag)	Gesammt-stimmen-zahl	Angenommenen Prozentziffer der sozial-demokratischen Wähler		Demnach für 1908 bei Annahme von insgesamt
				a	b	55 bis 56 Prozent (Spalte 6)		52 bis 53 Prozent (Spalte 7)
						sozialdemokratischer Wähler
						nicht-sozial-dem. Stimmen	soz. Stimmen	nicht-soz. Stimmen	soz. Stimmen
[Spalte] 2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
A. 4 Stimmen								[wie Spalte 8]	[wie Spalte 9]
I. Nach erworbenen Eigenschaften für die Vierstimmigkeit					[wie Spalte 6]
a. letztjährig versteuertes Einkommen über 2800 M	61972	71268	285072	3		276520	8552
b. Beamte über 2500 M Diensteinkommen	3891	4475	17900	2		17542	358
c. Gewerbekammerwähler/ Landeskulturratswähler über 2500 M Einkommen aus Gewerbe	4202	4832	19328	5		18362	966
d. Grundbesitz 200 Steuereinheiten unter der Voraussetzung eines Gesamteinkommens von über 2200 M	7000	8050	32200	4		30912	1288
e. oder von über 8 Hektar Land- u. Forstwirtschaft und Obstbau, 2 Hektar Garten- oder Weinbau (ohne Abhängigkeit von Einkommen
zusammen	77065	88625	354500	-		343336	11164
II. Nach Alter (über 50 Jahr alte Wähler) vierstimmige, die sonst dreistimmig wären.					[wie Spalte 6]
a. von über 2200 M bis 2800 M letztjährig versteuertes Einkommen	5593	6432	25728	5		24442	1286
b. Beamte mit über 1900 M Diensteinkommen	1845	2122	8488	5		8064	424
c. Gewerbekammerwähler/ Landeskulturratswähler mit über 1900 M Einkommen aus Gewerbe	2335	2685	10740	10		9666	1074
e. Besitz von über 4 Hektar zu Land- u. Forstwirtschaft und Obstbau oder über 1 bis 2 Hektar zu Garten- u. Weinbau	3777	4344	17376	5		16507	869
f. Vorbildung	100	115	460	6		432	28
zusammen	13650	15698	62792	-		59111	3681
[zusammen] A	90715	104323	417292	-		402447	14845	402447	14845
B. 3 Stimmen								[wie Spalte 8]	[wie Spalte 9]
I. Nach erworbenen Eigenschaften für die Dreistimmigkeit (unter 50 Jahr)					[wie Spalte 6]
a. letztjährig versteuertes Einkommen über 2200 M	14059	16168	48504	5		46079	2425
b. Beamte über 1900 M Diensteinkommen	5534	6364	19092	8		17565	1527
c. Gewerbekammerwähler/ Landeskulturratswähler über 1900 M Einkommen aus Gewerbe	5831	6706	20118	10		18106	2012
d. Grundbesitz 150 Steuereinheiten unter der Voraussetzung eines Gesamteinkommens von über 1600 M	9523	10951	32853	5		31210	1643
e. oder von über 4 Hektar Land- u. Forstwirtschaft und Obstbau, 1 Hektar Garten- oder Weinbau (ohne Abhängigkeit von Einkommen)
f. Vorbildung	2900	3335	10005	6		9405	600
zusammen	37847	43524	130572	-		122365	8207
II. Nach Alter (über 50 Jahr alt) dreistimmige, die sonst zweistimmig wären.					[wie Spalte 6]
a. letztjährig versteuertes Einkommen über 1600 bis 2200 M	9549	10981	32943	10		29649	3294
b. Beamte mit über 1400 bis 1600 M Diensteinkommen	2100	2415	7245	10		6520	725
c. Gewerbekammerwähler/ Landeskulturratswähler mit über 1250 bis 1400 M Einkommen aus Gewerbe	2806	3227	9681	20		7745	1936
e. Grundbesitzer mit über 2 bis 4 Hektar für Land-, Forst- u. Obstbau oder 1/2 bis 1 Hektar für Garten- oder Weinbau	2000	2300	6900	8		6348	552
zusammen	16455	18923	56769	-		50262	6507
[zusammen] B	54302	62447	187341	-		172627	14714	172627	14714
C. 2 Stimmen
I. Nach erworbenen Eigenschaften für die Zweistimmigkeit (unter 50 Jahr)					[wie Spalte 6]			[wie Spalte 8]	[wie Spalte 9]
a. letztjährig versteuertes Einkommen über 1600 M	27301	31396	62792	17.5		51804	10988
b. Beamte über 1400 M Diensteinkommen	6407	7368	14736	20		11789	2947
c. Gewerbekammerwähler/ Landeskulturratswähler über 1400 M Einkommen aus Gewerbe	7287	8380	16760	30		11732	5028
d. Grundbesitz 100 Steuereinheiten unter der Voraussetzung eines Gesamteinkommens von über 1250 M	5000	5750	11500	8		10580	920
e. oder von über 2 Hektar Land- u. Forstwirtschaft u. Obstbau, 1/2 Hektar Garten- oder Weinbau (ohne Abhängigkeit von Einkommen)
zusammen	45995	52894	105788			85905	19883	85905	19883
II. Nach Alter (über 50 Jahr alt) zweistimmige, die sonst einstimmig wären.	123949	142541	285082	39.6	37.7	172190	112892	177606	107476
[zusammen] C	169944	195435	390870			258095	132775	263511	127359
D. 1 Stimme	341684	392937	392937	86.9	82.0	51475	341462	70729	322208
überhaupt	656645	755142	1388440	55-56	52-53	884644	503796	909314	479126
							=36.21%		=34.51%

 

Source: Sächsisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Ministerium des Innern (MdI), Nr. 5491, Bl. 156, Anlage zu Dr. Würzburger (Direktor, Statistischer Landesamt) to Ministerium des Innern, 8 January 1909, “Tabelle B.”

 

Copyright © 2017 James Retallack. All rights reserved. This page is part of the Online Supplement to James Retallack, Red Saxony: Election Battles and the Spectre of Democracy in Germany, 1860-1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). ISBN 978-0-19-966878-6. Last updated: 8 March 2022.