New glitch with repeat dialing
Berlin polling station opens without voting documents
February 11, 2024, 2:09 p.m
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In 2021, Berlin botched the triple election for the Bundestag, the House of Representatives and the district parliaments. The local part of the election was able to take place a year ago, and now parts of the city are deciding on their Bundestag members – again not without difficulties.
There was also a minor glitch in Berlin during the partial repeat of the federal election. Like the RBB reported, the voting documents arrived at a polling station in Berlin-Pankow 45 minutes late. The polling station opened as planned at 8 a.m. According to eyewitnesses, the affected Berliners were only able to vote from 9 a.m. At this point, according to RBB, a queue had already formed in front of the polling station. Those waiting were asked to come back later, it is said.
State returning officer Stephan Bröchler admitted the glitch to the broadcaster a little later. As a result, the affected polling station 605/606 is located in a daycare center. The key to the daycare center was handed over to the election team, Bröchler explained to RBB. But not the key to an adjoining room where the voting documents were located. The Pankow district election office organized the key and things continued at 8:40 a.m. “I very much regret that this incident occurred,” said the state returning officer. “The district election office reacted as quickly as possible and we will also document this incident.”
Majority relationships do not change
On September 26, 2021, Berlin botched both the federal election and the elections to the House of Representatives and the district parliaments. Long queues in front of polling stations, missing or incorrect ballot papers and, in some places, a temporary interruption in voting ensured that not all voters were able to cast their votes properly. Therefore, the elections at the state and district level were completely repeated on February 12, 2023. In the vote, Franziska Giffey from the SPD lost her government majority.
According to a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, the federal election must be repeated in 455 of 2,256 electoral districts and the associated postal voting districts. 549,549 Berliners are called to vote.
The election in the capital will not change the majority in the Bundestag. The proportion of eligible voters in the total number at the federal level is only 0.9 percent. However, small shifts are possible. Some MPs could lose their seats in the Bundestag, others could move into parliament. The parties were not allowed to put forward any new candidates, the ballot paper had to look like it did in 2021. This means, for example, that the former AfD member of the Bundestag Birgit Malsack-Winkemann will formally run again, even though she did not make it into the Bundestag in 2021 and in December 2022 was arrested in a large-scale raid and is in custody.