Matthias Mieves of the Social Democratic Party was the top vote-getter in the Kaiserslautern constituency on Sunday. ()

Matthias Mieves of the center-left Social Democratic Party will represent the Kaiserslautern area in Germany’s most powerful legislative body after winning the constituency Sunday by 2.5 percentage points over a hard-right candidate, who also is headed to the Bundestag.

For Americans just moving to the area, here’s a quick, basic primer on the system and all those signs you’ve been seeing around your neighborhoods:

German national election campaigns are much, much shorter than American campaigns. They’re also publicly funded and more regulated. There are two ways for a candidate to get elected: by winning the most votes in a constituency, or being high enough on the list of a party that wins enough votes nationally for representation in the government.

In this case, Mieves (the guy holding the QR code on the election posters) was reelected for the second time since 2021, but by a smaller margin than last time. Sebastian Münzenmaier of the Alternative für Deutschland, who came in second, will enter parliament based on his party’s list and the overall votes the party received in the Kaiserslautern district, according to local newspaper Die Rheinpfalz.

Read more about the German elections here.

As for all those signs, many of them have already been removed and the rest should be taken down from telephone poles and billboards in short order.