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Bundestag Vice President Kubicki: “The Berlin administration has undeniably damaged confidence in the integrity of the Bundestag elections”
Photo: IMAGO/Sebastian Gabsch / IMAGO/Future Image
Missing ballots, temporarily closed polling stations and votes cast when projections were already published: Due to the chaotic conditions in the federal election in Berlin, a partial repetition is in the room.
With Bundestag Vice President Wolfgang Kubicki (FDP), the omissions in the capital are causing great displeasure.
"The Berlin administration has undeniably damaged trust in the integrity of the Bundestag elections, and I expect the Berlin Senate to explain to us what measures it is taking to prevent something like this in the future," he told the editorial network Germany (RND).
"Otherwise, the question arises as to whether the state of Berlin is still able to fulfill its obligations to the federal government."
Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel said on Tuesday at a hearing in the Bundestag's Election Review Committee that on election day last September it was not just individual errors that occurred as outliers.
Rather, it seems to have been a "complete systematic failure of the electoral organization."
The Bundestag decides whether there will be a new election in the six constituencies.
The Election Review Committee prepares a decision and submits it to the Bundestag plenary for voting.
The constitutional hurdles for a repeat election are very high for good reasons, said Kubicki: "Regardless of that, the incidents are shocking.
Apparently there was a systematic failure not only in the conduct and organization of the elections in Berlin, but also in the documentation of the election errors.
Just »tip of the iceberg«?
The actual effects on the elections can therefore hardly be quantified, according to the FDP politician.
"I think that's highly problematic.
It was rightly pointed out that the cases now being dealt with could only be the tip of the iceberg.«
In Berlin on September 26, the citizens not only elected the Bundestag, but also the House of Representatives and district councils.
In addition, there was a vote on a referendum on the expropriation of large housing companies.
At the same time, the Berlin marathon took place with many road closures.
A truck carrying ballot papers was stuck in traffic for hours on the A100.
Federal returning officer Thiel said he had repeatedly pointed out possible problems with the votes, the marathon and the corona situation to the state returning 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.
fek/dpa