In the old days (prior to the Wall coming down)....voter participation would be around 90-percent of registered voters showing up (it’s always on a Sunday and most businesses are closed). Oddly, in the 25 years since the Wall went down...voter participation slipped to around 72-percent. Most people expect no more than 75-percent maximum in this election.
So in various ways, this is the wild-card of the election. The poll people can give you the ranking and how things would be with the 72-to-75 percent participation. If you had another 10-percent show up and vote AfD...on top of the 12-percent anticipated, it’d make a difficult win for Merkel and a coalition group with marginal agreement.
plus approx 30% mail in ballots many mailed weeks ago