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Queuing for fundamental rights: Election day 2021 sank into chaos in Berlin
Photo: Hauke Christian Dittrich / dpa
Even embarrassing moments can turn into beautiful ones for democracy.
And it's thanks to the federal capital that it practically did a doctorate in embarrassments - because on Tuesday it delivered such a particularly beautiful moment in recent German democratic history.
What was going on?
On Tuesday, the Bundestag's Election Review Committee heard the Federal Returning Officer, Georg Thiel, and the Deputy State Returning Officer of the State of Berlin, Ulrike Rockmann.
The reason was the chaos in the elections on September 26, 2021 in Berlin: Long queues formed in front of many polling stations on Sunday because ballot papers were missing, some closed for up to two hours and voters were turned away.
Some voted well after 6 p.m. and were already reading the first projections on their cell phones in the queue.
Four votes and the marathon took place in Berlin that day.
In addition, the election was carried out under corona conditions.
The excitement was great, the state returning officer resigned.
The federal returning officer lodged a complaint because of blatant and numerous electoral errors in six Berlin constituencies, which corresponded to half the city.
The deputy state returning officer, Rockmann, saw no problems in the federal elections that would have been "relevant to the mandate" - where the chaos would have led to a different result.
Five hours of hearing, livestreamed
Because the positions of the two contradicted each other so strongly, the election review committee invited them and heard them publicly, broadcast via live stream, for five hours.
At the beginning all the embarrassments that Berlin had suffered during the election were presented again.
The Federal Returning Officer listed the mistakes – among other things, more than 250 polling stations voted until after 6:30 p.m., with the last one only closing at 9:31 p.m.
“There is a complete system failure here.
What else has to happen before we see elections as repeatable or illegal?” he asked.
What annoys him particularly: He has repeatedly pointed out the problems with the votes, the marathon and the Corona situation to the state election authority.
But the state election office always said that everything was under control.
Thiel noted that a World War II bomb had been found in Cologne on election day and that everything had worked out anyway.
The deputy state returning officer, Rockmann, was sitting right next to him, somewhat crumpled.
She also described: In 311 of 2257 polling stations there were significant deficiencies and violations.
The election was interrupted in 102 polling stations.
Rockmann alone is responsible for working through the problems, and there is still no new state returning officer.
The five ballot papers that eligible voters received weighed 32.5 grams. The electoral boards were supposed to cart around 700 of them into the polling stations, i.e. over 22 kilos.
That was simply too difficult for most electoral boards.
They only took part to the polling station, if supplies were needed, someone should supply them.
But when the ballot papers were running out, the supplies couldn't get through because many roads were closed because of the marathon.
A truck carrying ballot papers was stuck in traffic for hours on the A100.
Members of the committee were irritated by the procedure: "I was a member of the electoral board myself several times," said the chairwoman, Daniela Ludwig (CSU), "and I was never responsible for driving ballot papers to the polling station."
Also an embarrassment: the transcripts
When the polling stations finally ran out of ballots for individual votes, some electoral boards decided to stop voting altogether.
So the queues got longer and longer.
But although there were corresponding complaints, the official records of the election day did not always contain a note.
The minutes, as was evident during today's meeting, were often incomplete: very few electoral officers had noted that queues had formed because everyone inside had their hands full getting people to vote.
The committee went through the individual polling stations about which the federal returning officer had received complaints and compared them with the findings of the state returning officer.
The chairperson of the meeting repeatedly had to note "objection" because the minutes of the electoral board did not match the complaint, i.e. it was not noted there whether the problems complained of had arisen.
Towards the end, the Federal Returning Officer said: "We would have been faster if we had gone through the bars where things were really going well."
In the live stream, you saw stunned faces again and again, the federal returning officer shook his head and clapped his hands in his face, which only moderately concealed his shock.
The state election authority was contrite, their statements can be summed up as "didn't do it".
The chaos was a team effort
However, there were some structural problems in the organization of elections in Berlin: The state electoral authority cannot tell the Berlin districts what to do and what not to do.
They organize the elections, and the Interior Senator is ultimately responsible.
Ulrike Rockmann lectured with the sobriety of a mathematician, but you can hardly blame her - the chaos was a team effort.
Rockmann repeated her assessment that the problems had no "relevance to the mandate" in an abbreviated but conclusive manner: Because the turnout in the polling districts did not differ greatly compared to previous years, she said it could not be assumed that those eligible to vote were prevented from voting .
The mistakes are annoying and should not be repeated, she also apologized for them.
But they would not have distorted the result.
A small treasure sparkled between all these sad discoveries: a dozen men and women sat together and dealt with the greatest good of democracy, the elections, at times in a hair-raising manner, but always in a concentrated and public manner.
Sabine Ludwig chaired the meeting with severe cheerfulness.
And even if Georg Thiel and Ulrike Rockmann argued technically, it remained peaceful.
Both are, it seemed, seriously interested in enlightenment.
At the beginning of the session, Thiel advocated having the elections repeated in half of Berlin's constituencies - but Ulrike Rockmann's sober assessments probably ensured that he later partly caught it: It might also be enough to vote in individual constituencies repeat, he said.
And Rockmann - who still saw no evidence of mandate-relevant violations - gave open information on request about what a repetition could look like.
The best moment of the hearing of the Election Review Committee in the Bundestag came shortly before the end.
The meeting had already been running for almost four hours when the question came up as to whether the same lists of candidates would have to be used if the elections were repeated.
The Berlin member of the Bundestag and fully qualified lawyer Thomas Heilmann (CDU) opened his microphone and lifted a white law booklet.
“I just wanted to point out Section 44 of the Federal Elections Act.
It clearly states: The repeat elections – and we are talking about them here – will take place according to the same regulations, the same election proposals – that means the question has been clarified, it will not be raised again within the party.”
Cheerful exchange of blows on the basis of the free-democratic basic order
Then the Federal Returning Officer half turned casually in his chair and picked up the same little book.
"Mr. Heilmann, I don't like to correct you."
You could tell he didn't like it at all.
If the election were to be repeated, all representatives of the State of Berlin assured that things would go better
"There is the second sentence, 'unless deviations are determined in the election review process'."
It was a cheerful exchange of blows on the basis of the free-democratic basic order.
Chairperson Ludwig ended the discussion with the Solomonic words: "We'll take our time to look at it."
That's what the committee needs to do now.
Before the meeting, it was still possible to hear that one was rather skeptical as to whether a repetition was necessary.
After the end of the session, however, it was said that the impression had grown that the Bundestag elections would have to be repeated in parts - the upper limit would probably be the six constituencies named by the federal returning officer, i.e. half the city.
Ideally, the body wants to reach a decision before the summer recess of the Bundestag – the Bundestag would then have to vote on it.
But it can be assumed that the decision would be sued, one way or another.
All representatives of the State of Berlin assured that if the elections were to be repeated, things would go better.
Most certainly.
