Thursday October 14, 2021
Countless irregularities
State election committee objects to the Berlin election
Long queue, wrong or missing ballot papers, interruption of the election: In Berlin on September 26th a lot went wrong in the election for the House of Representatives. The state election control wants to appeal because of this.
The state election management wants to appeal to the Berlin Constitutional Court against the results of the election to the House of Representatives on September 26th. In two constituencies there were violations of the electoral law that could have an impact on the distribution of mandates, said state returning officer Petra Michaelis at a meeting of the election committee. It is now possible to repeat the election in both constituencies. The Constitutional Court must decide on this after examining the events.
The objection relates to constituency 6 in the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district and constituency 1 in the Marzahn-Hellersdorf district. There, in the first votes, which are decisive for the direct mandate, the gap between first and second place is very small. “In these cases, irregularities could have had an impact on the mandate,” said Michaelis. As examples, she cited incorrectly issued ballot papers or the temporary closure of polling stations due to missing ballot papers.
Overall, there were irregularities in the election to the House of Representatives in 207 of 2,257 polling stations, as Michaelis further announced in the committee meeting. “This is a number that must scare and annoy us all,” she said. On the other hand, she could state that the election in over 2000 polling stations went off without any problems.
After checking all the relevant documents from all Berlin districts, Michaelis presented a list with details of what went wrong. These included delays in sending postal voting documents, incorrect or missing ballot papers, a temporary interruption in the polling process in pubs or long queues in front of polling stations. Several hundred polling stations were open longer than usual.