December 1946 Hessian state election

The December 1946 Hessian state election was held on 1 December 1946 to elect the 1st Landtag of Hesse. The outgoing government was an all-party coalition led by Minister-President Karl Geiler.

Compared to the elections for the Constituent Assembly held at the end of June, both the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Christian Democratic Union (CDU) declined, while the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) particularly improved. The SPD remained the largest party with 43%, followed by the CDU on 31%, LDP on 16%, and Communist Party (KPD) on 11%. The SPD subsequently formed a grand coalition with the CDU, led by Minister-President Christian Stock.

Electoral system
The Landtag was elected via party-list proportional representation. 62 members were elected in multi-member constituencies, and 28 then allocated using compensatory proportional representation. A single ballot was used for both. An electoral threshold of 5% of valid votes is applied to the Landtag; parties that fall below this threshold are ineligible to receive seats.

Background
In the previous election held on 30 June 1946, the SPD emerged as the largest party with 44.3%, followed by the CDU on 37%, KPD on 10%, and LDP on 8%.

Parties
The table below lists parties represented in the Constituent Assembly.