Voters cast their votes in the mayoral election in Cottbus on Sunday Photo: picture alliance/dpa
From BZ/dpa
After allegations of electoral fraud circulated on the Internet during the Cottbus mayoral election, the city rejected this as false.
“This is just an indication for people with visual impairments to be able to insert the note with the template correctly,” said election officer Carsten Konzack on Sunday of the German Press Agency. “It’s the same for all ballot papers.”
In the Cottbus resistance group of the Telegram messenger service, a user had written that anyone who was identified as a potential AfD voter would obviously receive a canceled ballot. In another post, the accusation was that it was a “devalued document”.
Even before the 2021 federal election, the accusation could be read that a corner of the ballot paper that had been cut off was invalid. The Federal Electoral Code stipulates that the top right corner must be punched or cut off.
Thomas Bergner (CDU), Tobias Schick (SPD), Lars Schieske (AfD), Sven Benken (Unser Cottbus), Lysann Kobbe (Die Basis), Felix Sicker (FDP) and Johann Staudinger (individual applicants) were up for election in Cottbus. CDU incumbent Holger Kelch did not run again for health reasons.
In the local and state elections in 2019, the AfD emerged as the strongest force. In the 2021 federal election, the mandate went to the SPD, with the AfD behind it.