Bundestag election: ++ “Postal voting as safe as ballot box voting” ++

8:17 am

Federal Returning Officer: Postal voting as safe as ballot box voting

Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel has rejected criticism of the postal vote. “Postal voting is just as safe as going to the polls,” said Thiel in the joint morning magazine of ARD and ZDF. The possibility of postal voting has existed in Germany since 1957. “Since then, we have not actually had any major incidents that would have impaired the outcome of the entire election in any way.” Thiel emphasized that the counting of the postal votes in the Bundestag election starts like the counting of the ballot box votes on Sunday from 6 p.m. “It happens transparently, everyone can see it, can come to the polling stations.”

07:43 am

Stoiber: No coalition participation without an election victory

Ex-Union Chancellor candidate Edmund Stoiber sees the Union only as the winner in a government coalition after the federal election. “I cannot imagine that a traditional ruling party like the Union, which has ruled Germany for well over 50 years and has shaped the country decisively, will join a coalition as a junior partner,” said the former CSU head of the dpa news agency.

Even if the election campaign is currently not going well for the Union, Stoiber still believes in a narrow victory for the CDU and CSU. “The election has not yet been lost. Now the main thing is to address the old regular voters. There is certainly still room for improvement,” emphasized Stoiber.

07:32 am

Aiwanger: Entry of free voters prevents red-green-red

Free voter leader Hubert Aiwanger sees in his party’s entry into the Bundestag a lever to prevent a coalition of the SPD, the Greens and the Left Party. Germany is on the verge of a red-green-red government, “unless the free voters move into the Bundestag. Then other constellations are likely,” Aiwanger told the “Welt”. In some polls, the free voters are at three percent.

“I hope that people will be consistent enough and not vote again for the parties that have been scolded about for four years, but give us free voters a chance,” said Aiwanger, who is also Minister of Economics and Vice-Prime Minister in Bavaria. In his opinion, the new Bundestag should vote on ending the corona measures at the first vote.

07:12 am

Election researchers: AfD voters in the east hope for economic benefits

According to election researcher Matthias Jung, East German protest voters vote for the AfD, partly for tactical reasons, in order to gain economic advantages. It goes “of course also about the fact that one wants to get higher allocations for East Germany with protest voting behavior as well as a faster adjustment of wages or pensions”, said the board of the research group elections of the news agency dpa. Such tactical protest voters exist alongside AfD supporters with a “closed right-wing radical view of the world”.

According to surveys, the alternative for Germany could become the strongest party in the Bundestag election on Sunday in Saxony, Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt. “The AfD has had stable double-digit results in the eastern federal states since 2014,” said Jung. “This is not a new development.” Nationwide, the AfD was last in surveys at around eleven percent, in Saxony, however, at 26 percent.

07:00 a.m.

The live blog from Tuesday to read

Prime Minister Ramelow criticizes a campaign in southern Thuringia to support the SPD candidate there in order to prevent CDU candidate Maaßen. SPD candidate Scholz accuses the Union of failing industrial policy. All developments from Tuesday for reading.