Editing Prussian three-class franchise (section)

=== Electoral districts (constituencies) ===
The electors of a constituency gathered on a uniform national day at a polling place in their constituency, established by law in 1860, to elect members of parliament. Usually there were several hundred electors in a constituency, in some cases well over 1,000. One to three deputies were elected in each constituency, although before 1860 there were constituencies with more. In 1860, 176 electoral districts were established by law. The electoral districts always comprised one or more entire city or county districts; only Berlin was divided into several electoral districts.

Apart from minor shifts in district boundaries, there was only one change to these constituencies before a law of 1906 that was effective with the 1908 election. Under its terms, several constituencies with particularly large population growth were divided into smaller constituencies and a total of 10 additional seats were allocated to these areas (Greater Berlin 5, [[Ruhr]] 4, and [[Upper Silesia]] 1). Otherwise, the only changes in constituency division were additional constituencies for areas annexed to Prussia after the [[Austro-Prussian War]] of 1866 ([[Hanover]], [[Hesse Nassau|Hesse-Nassau]], and [[Schleswig-Holstein]] in 1867, and [[Lauenburg]] in 1876). In the long term, a trend toward more single-member constituencies can be observed:

{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|-
| Electoral Districts<br />by Number of Representatives
| '''1861'''
| '''1867'''
| '''1876'''
| '''1885'''
| '''1888'''
| '''1908'''
|-
| '''1 Representative'''
| 27
| 105
| 106
| 104
| 105
| 132
|-
| '''2 Representatives'''
| 122
| 123
| 123
| 124
| 125
| 121
|-
| '''3 Representatives'''
| 27
| 27
| 27
| 27
| 26
| 23
|-
| ''Total Electoral Districts''
| ''176''
| ''255''
| ''256''
| ''255''
| ''256''
| ''276''
|-
| ''Total Seats''
| '''352'''
| '''432'''
| '''433'''
| '''433'''
| '''433'''
| '''443'''
|}

The classes, which were only minimally adjusted for population changes, further favored the conservatives, since their deputies came mainly from eastern and rural parts of the country with low population growth.