Chaotic conditions in Berlin
Karlsruhe is examining breakdowns in the 2021 federal election
07/18/2023 12:59 p.m
The 2021 federal election was chaotic in many polling stations in Berlin. The Federal Constitutional Court now wants to decide to what extent the vote must be repeated. It should deal with fundamental questions about the election.
The Federal Constitutional Court has begun oral hearings on the breakdowns in the Bundestag elections in Berlin in September 2021. According to the Bundestag, the election should be repeated in some Berlin voting districts, which the CDU and CSU do not find sufficient. Karlsruhe now wants to review previous standards for voting errors.
During the federal elections on September 26, 2021, some polling stations in Berlin were temporarily closed due to missing or incorrect ballot papers. Due to various organizational problems, long queues formed in some places. There were later more than 1700 objections to the election.
In November last year, the Bundestag decided, with the votes of the traffic light coalition, to have the Bundestag elections in Berlin repeated in about a fifth of the electoral districts. The Union faction in the Bundestag finds that too little. She argues that the election should have been declared invalid in at least six complete Berlin constituencies – for which the then Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel himself had raised an objection. In his opinion, it cannot be ruled out that the voting errors had an impact on the result of the second votes. In addition, waiting times that are too long are also a mistake, the Union says.
AfD filed a complaint against partial repetition
She wants to have the second vote repeated in the relevant constituencies and turned to the Constitutional Court with an election review complaint. In the negotiation, this wants to deal with fundamental questions about the election, as Vice President Doris König announced in her introduction. Among other things, it is about whether long waiting times in themselves constitute a voting error or whether they are indications of other voting errors.
The court also wants to examine how far the possibility of voting after 6 p.m. on election day can reach if those entitled to vote were at the polling station on time. In addition, it should be about whether Karlsruhe can clarify the election itself independently. Two days were set aside for the hearing.
A verdict is not expected this week. Experience has shown that it takes a few months to get there. The AfD also moved to Karlsruhe because of the planned partial repetition of the federal elections. Her complaint is now not being dealt with. The Berlin parliamentary elections, which took place on the same day as the federal elections, are also irrelevant. This was repeated in full in February.