Saxony-Anhalt elects its Landtag: 15 lists and around 1.69 million voters

Today, September 6, 2026, Saxony-Anhalt elects its ninth Landtag. Polling stations remain open from 8 am to 6 pm, according to official information from the Landeswahlleiterin, the Land’s electoral authority. Those eligible to vote number around 1.69 million: this is an estimate built on population data as of December 31, 2024, therefore an order of magnitude stated as such and not a definitive count.

The system is the German two-vote model: the first for the constituency candidate, the second for the party’s regional list. Fifteen regional lists have been submitted. The outgoing Landtag, elected on June 6, 2021, has 97 seats, against a minimum set by law of 83: the difference depends on the compensation mechanisms typical of the personalized proportional system, which can expand the assembly beyond its base size. How many seats the next Landtag will have, therefore, is not known before the count: it is a function of the result.

The party landscape

Among the forces in the field, the AfD is classified as right-wing extremist by the regional office for the protection of the Constitution, according to the profile published by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, the federal agency for civic education. This is an administrative classification, produced by a public oversight body, and must be kept distinct from a journalistic judgment: we report it for what it is, the act of an authority.

That the party is aiming for a significant result is what the international press review reported by Quotidiano dei Contribuenti states; however, no polls with percentages, institutes, or survey dates appear in the available material. For this reason we are not publishing any numerical forecast here: an expectation reported by the press is not data.

Why a German region matters

German regional elections do not change the federal government, but they affect three concrete levels. The first is the Bundesrat, the chamber of the Länder, whose composition depends on regional governments. The second is the internal geography of the parties: a result in an eastern Land weighs on the balance of power within national leaderships. The third is the formation of the local majority, which, in the presence of a fragmented assembly, can require weeks of negotiations.

The table summarizes what is known before the polls open.

Element	Data
Voting date	September 6, 2026
Polling hours	8 am-6 pm
Regional lists	15
Eligible voters (estimate)	around 1.69 million
Seats in outgoing Landtag	97 (statutory minimum 83)

What we don’t know

We do not know the turnout, either partial or final. We do not know when the first official data will be released after the polls close, because the available material does not indicate the timing of the first projections. We do not know the number of single-member constituencies, nor the electoral threshold applied in this Land: these are elements that determine the translation of votes into seats and which, without a source, we do not report.

The useful verification will come tonight, after 6 pm: the comparison between the result by list and the actual size of the assembly will tell whether the Landtag will remain around the 97 seats of 2021 or move closer to the statutory minimum of 83.