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Queue in front of Berlin polling station on September 26, 2021
Photo: Sebastian Gollnow / dpa
The traffic light parties make a suggestion as to how the election chaos in Berlin could be dealt with: they believe it is necessary to repeat the federal election in 300 of almost 2,300 voting districts.
This refers exclusively to the second votes, said the SPD MP Johannes Fechner of the AFP news agency.
Fechner therefore sent a corresponding proposal from the traffic light representatives in the Bundestag's election examination committee to Chairwoman Daniela Ludwig (CSU).
The letter is available to SPIEGEL;
AFP had initially reported on it.
The committee is to make a recommendation, on the basis of which the Bundestag votes.
That should probably happen in October.
Since the traffic light parties make up the majority in the committee, it is likely that the committee will approve the proposal.
However, it is expected that complaints will then be filed with the Federal Constitutional Court, which will have the last word.
Parallel to the federal elections, the Berlin House of Representatives and the twelve district councils were elected on September 26, 2021 in Berlin.
There was also a referendum on the expropriation of large housing groups;
the Berlin Marathon also took place on the same day.
This combination resulted in chaos in many places.
Ballot papers were missing or incorrectly issued, there were long queues or polling stations were temporarily closed.
Therefore, there are numerous objections to the result, especially from Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel.
The background to the traffic light proposal is a hearing by the Berlin Constitutional Court last Wednesday on the breakdowns in the House of Representatives and district council elections.
The court made it clear that it felt it urgently needed a repeat (read more here).
"The Berlin Constitutional Court has encouraged us to hold new elections where election errors have occurred," said Fechner.
»Unlike the Berlin Constitutional Court, like the Federal Returning Officer, we do not see the voting errors in every constituency.«
According to this, for example, a late closing of a polling station should only be considered a voting error if votes could still be cast after 6.45 p.m.
"We also believe that a brief interruption in the voting process of less than 15 minutes does not constitute a voting error and that a waiting time of this magnitude is reasonable for citizens," said Fechner.
Thiel saw the incidents in almost 340 constituencies as serious and called for the election to be repeated in six of Berlin's twelve constituencies.
In one case - in Berlin-Reinickendorf - Thiel also questioned the result of the first vote.
The traffic light did not agree with this assessment.
Fechner sees it as necessary to discuss whether the Bundestag should continue to carry out the scrutiny of federal elections in the future or whether the Federal Constitutional Court should not do so.
Members of the Bundestag are currently deciding on their own future and the mandates of their colleagues.
"This can lead to conflicts of interest, which is why it makes sense to abolish the election examination by the Bundestag and to transfer the review of objections to the Bundestag election solely to the Federal Constitutional Court."
ulz/cte/AFP
