User:MWikiEditor123/Volt Germany

Volt Germany (German: Volt Deutschland, abbreviated Volt) is a German political party founded on March 3, 2018. It is a branch of Volt Europa and runs for elections within Germany.

Ideology and policies
In addition to the pan-European policy portfolio, Volt Germany also has its own extensive basic program. It focuses on five “challenges” that the party would like to address at local, regional and national level. These are “a smart state", "social equality", "economic renaissance", "citizen empowerment” and “global balance”. In addition to these challenges, it supports a transnational EU reform in accordance with the programs of Volt Germany and Volt Europa is to be striven for. Volt Germany's program for the 2019 European elections is identical to that of all other European branches. It was adopted as the "Amsterdam Declaration" by all Volt national sections in October 2018.

European Parliament election 2019
In May 2019, Volt Germany successfully sued the Wahl-O-Mat of the Federal Agency for Civic Education because the maximum possible pre-selection of 8 parties and the fact that established parties are displayed higher up put small parties at a disadvantage. The administrative court in Cologne granted the urgent application and decided that the Wahl-O-Mat should no longer be operated in its current form. The area for the European elections was therefore not available for two days. After an out-of-court settlement, the Wahl-O-Mat went online again on May 23, 2019, after the Federal Agency for Civic Education had promised to enable all parties to be compared from the state elections in September 2019.

In the 2019 European elections, Volt Germany received 249,098 votes (0.7% of the valid votes) according to the official final result of the Federal Returning Officer. One of the 96 seats from Germany in the European Parliament went to Volt, which was accepted by the first place on the electoral list.

Volt Germany achieved high proportions of votes in large cities. Heidelberg was the front runner with a share of the vote of 2.9%. But also in cities like Munich and Karlsruhe (2.2%), Mainz (1.9%), Bonn (1.8%), Cologne (1.6%) or Frankfurt am Main (1.5%) the Party do significantly better than the national German average. In the two largest cities in Germany, Berlin and Hamburg, the party made it to 1.2% of the vote. In the city council election in Mainz, which was carried out at the same time, Volt received 1.2% of the votes and a seat on the council.

2020 elections
In the state election in Hamburg 2020, Volt ran for the first time in a German state election. The Volt's state list received 1.3 percent of the vote.

In the local elections in Bavaria 2020, Volt ran in Munich and Bamberg and won a city council mandate with 1.8 and 2.1 percent of the vote. In Munich city councilor Felix Sproll joined the SPD parliamentary group, which, together with Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen and Rosa Liste, decided on a coalition, whereby Volt is involved in the city government. In Bamberg, the city councilor Hans-Günter Brünker formed a parliamentary group with Bamberg's center and the ÖDP.

Volt achieved a total of 16 seats in city councils in the local elections in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2020, four in Cologne, three in Bonn, two each in Aachen, Düsseldorf, Münster and Siegen and one in Paderborn. In Bonn, Volt formed a coalition with Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, SPD and Die Linke and is thus involved in the city government. In Münster, Volt has formed a coalition with Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen and the SPD, which has a majority in the council. In March 2021, Volt, the CDU and Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen came together in Cologne to form an alliance that from now on forms the city government. In Düsseldorf Volt formed a parliamentary group together with the SPD.

Elections 2021
In the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate on March 14, 2021, Volt accounted for 1.0% of the state's votes. In the state elections on the same day in Baden-Württemberg, Volt ran in 44 of the 70 constituencies; the party received 0.5% of the valid votes.

In the local elections in Hesse on the same day, Volt was able to move into several city parliaments. The party got the best result in Darmstadt with 6.88%, where Volt formed a coalition with the CDU and the Greens. Furthermore, Volt moves into the city council assemblies of Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, Gießen, Fulda and Heusenstamm. In Frankfurt, Volt formed a coalition with the Greens, the SPD and the FDP.

On May 31, 2021, Volt published its election program for the federal election in 2021. The party plans to run with state lists in all 16 federal states, as well as with direct candidates in various circles.

In a press release on June 7th, 2021, the party Die Sozialliberalen called on its members to join Volt Germany in order to “bring together the fragmented social liberal currents in Germany”. After the local elections in 2020 and 2021, Volt became part of the city government as a coalition partner in Munich, Bonn, Münster, Darmstadt and Frankfurt as well as an alliance partner in Cologne in six cities.

Regional associations
Volt Germany is organized nationwide in numerous local and city teams, which, with the exception of a few district associations, do not form legally independent organizational units. The city teams are assigned to the respective regional association.