Besides, reasonably well informed voters my themselves decide not to vote for parties they otherwise support that have no chance of success, so that their votes will carry weight in the final choice. An example is the significant number of split votes in German elections, where according to estimates as many as 15% of electors vote for small parties in the proportional part of elections but major ones in the plurality part. In practice, this is not significant in this system because the compensatory arrangements mean that seats won directly are deducted from the proportional allocation, so seats are not really lost and the final result is the same, though subject to the aforementioned Überhangsmandate. The main function of such split votes is in fact to ensure that small parties cross the 5% barrier, and this can be critical.