By Stephen Peter
Do around a million Berliners have to vote again? Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel demands a repeat of the federal election in six constituencies and mercilessly settles accounts with the breakdown organization in the capital!
On Tuesday, the Bundestag dealt with the chaos election of September 2021. The objection of the Federal Returning Officer to the Berlin results was negotiated in the Election Review Committee. “We take what happened in Berlin very seriously,” said committee chairwoman Daniela Ludwig (CSU).
During the day, new voting documents had to be delivered to many polling stations because the existing ones were incorrect or insufficient Photo: DAVIDS/Sven Darmer
Thiel was not sparing with criticism, waddled the capital violently. It was foreseeable that there would be too few poll workers. The multiple burden of three elections (Bundestag, House of Representatives, BVV), referendum and Berlin marathon was also addressed. But every time it was said: “We are well prepared, we have everything under control.”
On election day, it wasn’t just individual errors that happened as outliers. Waiting times of up to two hours and the temporary closure of polling stations are unacceptable. Thiel clearly: “Unlike the state election authority, I am of the opinion that these are not individual outliers, but here it seems to me that there is a complete, systematic failure of the electoral organization.”
Awkward. There were no more ballot papers in this polling station Photo: Gunther
Thiel reiterated: “We are in a federal capital of a civilized country. Something like that shouldn’t happen there.”
And further: “The entire electoral organization in Berlin urgently needs an overhaul!” The chaos has nothing to do with the big city. “We even had to organize a bomb find in Cologne during the election, during which the polling stations were closed for three hours,” said Thiel.
The polling stations that are open long after 6 p.m. are also questionable – that is legally permissible, but the legislator only thought of a few minutes. “We never thought that the elephant round was already running on television and then polling stations were still open.” Already on the evening of the election day, his authority noticed the incoming election results: “Everyone delivered, only one country didn’t – that was Berlin!”
Some polling stations were still open well after 6 p.m. – like here in a polling station at Volkspark Friedrichshain in Prenzlauer Berg shortly after 7 p.m Photo: Christian Lohse
Thiel to the committee members: “I ask you, what else has to happen that we see elections as not going well or as illegal or repeatable?”
Even the clarification of the election chaos did not work properly, he complained. “The documentation is completely inadequate. They’re so bad…” To this day, it’s not clear where the missing ballot papers went.
In constituencies 75 (middle), 76 (Pankow), 77 (Reinickendorf), 79 (Steglitz-Zehlendorf), 80 (Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf) and 83 (Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg/Prenzlauer Berg-Ost), the errors are particularly serious and possibly Mandate-relevant – so they might have an impact on the distribution of seats in the Bundestag.
State Returning Officer Petra Michaelis resigned from her post after the huge election chaos Photo: dpa
That is why Thiel repeatedly called for the election to be repeated in the six constituencies. A trustworthy election result is “worth the highest price in terms of money and effort”.
There was objection from the deputy state returning officer, Prof. Ulrike Rockmann – her boss already threw it down after the chaos. But Rockmann did not give a good picture on Tuesday either. Again and again she answered evasively and could not answer some of the MPs’ questions. Why is the documentation of electoral glitches often incomplete? Allegedly stress among the electoral boards …
Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel and Berlin’s Deputy Returning Officer Ulrike Rockmann on Tuesday in the Bundestag Photo: ZDF
“Certainly there were disabilities,” says Rockmann. But it is not possible to put into numbers “how many people refrained from voting”. And: “Unfortunately, the conditions were very difficult. But you could have voted if you had waited.” She emphasized: “No one has been deprived of the right to vote.”
The Election Review Committee plans to make a recommendation on the re-election within the next few weeks. The Bundestag then votes on them. This decision can in turn be appealed to the Federal Constitutional Court.
Could other candidates win after a possible new election? “New game, new luck,” said the Federal Returning Officer succinctly.
