Clarity soon about repeat elections: dispute in Parliament

Created: 2022-10-06Updated: 2022-10-06 15:05

A voter puts his or her ballot paper into the ballot box at a polling station.

© Sebastian Kahnert/dpa-Zentralbild/dpa/Symbolbild

Berlin's House of Representatives is once again debating the electoral glitches a good year ago.

The message of the day on the subject comes from the Constitutional Court.

Berlin - Berlin will have clarity in six weeks as to whether the election to the House of Representatives must be repeated in whole or in part.

The Berlin Constitutional Court announced on Thursday that it would announce its verdict on the validity of the November 16 election.

The announcement was made at the same time as a debate in the House of Representatives on the election mishaps on September 26, 2021. The CDU and AfD accused the current building senator Andreas Geisel (SPD), who was then the interior senator and responsible for the elections, of complicity in the debacle.

Instead of taking responsibility and resigning, he sticks to his office.

However, separate motions by both groups to dismiss the senator did not find a majority in parliament.

Meanwhile, Interior Senator Iris Spranger announced changes in the preparation and conduct of elections.

In the House of Representatives, the SPD politician mentioned better logistics for distributing ballot papers, equipping each polling station with three to four instead of two polling booths, uniform procedures for recruiting and training election workers and clearer guidelines for transmitting election results.

A “continuous communication structure” is also planned between the new state returning officer Stephan Bröchler, the district returning officers and the internal administration in order to standardize and professionalize election procedures.

A state electoral office will be created at state level, Spranger continued.

In the districts, the local elective offices should therefore work permanently with a permanent workforce.

As Spranger added, she also wants to tackle legal changes in the short and medium term, including in the electoral law and the state electoral code.

Among other things, this involves describing the distribution of tasks between all those involved more clearly.

The aim of all measures is to make Berlin future-proof for future elections, said Spranger.

Conducting elections is a city-wide task.

A good week ago, the Berlin Constitutional Court surprisingly clearly considered a complete repetition at a hearing about several objections to the validity of the election.

Court President Ludgera Selting explained that there were many serious electoral errors in the preparation and conduct of the election.

She cited poor preparation such as too few ballot boxes and, on election day itself, among other things, missing, wrong or even copied ballot papers or nationwide voting after 6 p.m. as causes.

As the court underlined, the statements on September 28 were a preliminary assessment.

It remains to be seen whether the verdict on November 16 goes in the same direction.

However, since this negotiation at the latest, politicians in Berlin have been preparing for a repeat election - completely or at least partially.

Should the court order this, the election would have to take place within a statutory period of 90 days, i.e. by mid-February.

The last possible Sunday would be February 12th.

In the parliamentary debate, all parliamentary groups underlined that a debacle like the one in 2021 must not be repeated.

Mistakes would have to be dealt with and lessons learned.

Because there was damage to democracy.

Unsurprisingly, the coalition factions SPD, Greens and Left did not support the call for Senator Geisel to be dismissed, nor did the FDP.

CDU parliamentary group leader Kai Wegner and AfD parliamentary group leader Kristin Brinker, on the other hand, consider Geisel to be unacceptable.

He had failed as the senator responsible for elections and had already ignored hints and warnings about problems.

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"This election disaster must not remain without consequences," said Wegner.

Instead of taking responsibility for it, Geisel tries to "go underground and wait it out".

Wegner asked the governing mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD) to dismiss her party friend Geisel.

"Because now at the latest, Ms. Giffey, it is also your problem and your responsibility."

Brinker sees the election mishaps in 2021 as evidence that Berlin has been poorly governed for decades.

"Berlin is more reminiscent of the capital of a banana republic," she said.

FDP parliamentary group leader Sebastian Czaja spoke of a “battered government” with a view to the red-green-red Senate.

“Organized irresponsibility” prevails there.

Geisel did not speak on the subject in Parliament.

He has so far refused to resign and recently argued, among other things, that the right to vote does not give the interior administration any direct powers to intervene in the preparation or follow-up of the election.

dpa