People were able to object to the election in Berlin for two months, and this Friday the objection period for the election to the Bundestag ends. Judging by the sheer number of objections, the votes on the last Sunday in September must have been a disaster: 1700 objections were received by the Federal Returning Officer by Thursday, around every second one has to do with Berlin, it says there. That even surpasses the record for the 1994 federal election, in which 1,453 votes were raised, mainly because of the 16 overhang seats at the time. In other years it fluctuated between 80 and 275 objections, only after the 2002 election it was more than 500.
At the same time, on this Sunday, after a month, the opportunity to officially protest against the Berlin part of this super election day in September: against the election to the House of Representatives, the district council meetings and the vote on the referendum “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co”. The Berlin Constitutional Court had received 18 objections by Thursday, compared to just five in the 2016 election.
The enormous difference between the objections to the Bundestag and House of Representatives elections comes from a very different group of eligible persons: While every voter can officially complain about the Bundestag election, in the case of the House of Representatives elections, as a rule, only authorities, parties or the candidates themselves Expiry of the deadlines three more prominent complainants have now spoken. Last Friday, Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel raised his objection, on the following Monday the Deputy State Returning Officer of Berlin, Ulrike Rockmann, and Interior Senator Andreas Geisel (SPD). That too is certainly a unique process so far.
A series of mishaps accompanied the elections in Berlin, the city seemed completely overwhelmed with four votes and the simultaneous Berlin marathon. There are said to have been irregularities in 200 of the approximately 2,200 polling stations – an embarrassment that made headlines around the world and led to the resignation of the state returning officer.
The problems: ballot papers, queues, opening times
In their appeals, however, the two election officers and the Senator for the Interior aim primarily at four incidents: That ballot papers were issued incorrectly – or not at all. That the queues at some polling stations were extremely long. And that is why the opening times have been extended until well after 6 p.m. in some cases. All of these cases could have resulted in voters not being able to vote the way they wanted, they say.
As annoying as these mishaps are for individuals, neither the Bundestag nor the House of Representatives elections need to be repeated. Because the hurdle for this is high, it is essential that an election error must have had a noticeable effect on the election result. In the case of the election to the House of Representatives, this could include, for example, a constituency in Berlin-Pankow. There only 30 votes separate the direct candidate of the left, Senator for Culture Klaus Lederer, from the victorious Green Oda Hassepaß. In the constituency I Marzahn-Hellersdorf, the direct candidate of the AfD again won with only 70 votes ahead of the rival of the SPD.
There were similarly tight results in the Bundestag election in Berlin. The SPD direct candidate Torsten Einstmann lost just 1.4 percent of the votes against the top candidate of the CDU, Monika Grütters, in the Reinickendorf constituency. In absolute numbers, that’s still 1,788 votes, which is why Einstmann is given little chance even if there is a new election in the district. Overall, the federal electoral officer cites six out of twelve federal electoral districts as problematic, but in most cases it concerns errors that have no effect on the election result.
The Bundestag’s electoral review committee now has to examine the objections of the federal electoral officer just like the other 1,700 or so objections. The problem: precisely because of the election, the committee has not yet been reconstituted. One does not want to comment on the duration of the examination there, in previous legislative periods a good year has often passed. A complaint can then be lodged with the Federal Constitutional Court against the result.
Tens of thousands of Berliners may have to vote again
As in the case of the House of Representatives election, serious experts also assume that the overall result will hold up in the Bundestag election. However, the vote may have to be repeated in one or the other narrow constituency. Tens of thousands of Berliners could then be affected. In the case of the House of Representatives election, the Constitutional Court must decide on this. This is not expected before spring, any new elections must then be scheduled within 90 days.
The result of a commission of experts, which the Senate will set up in December, is also expected at this point in time. “The work has a clear mandate: we have to regain trust that has been lost,” said Interior Senator Geisel at the presentation of the commission last Tuesday. “There can be no doubt in our country that an election is being carried out properly.”
He has already identified a central problem that led to the breakdowns on September 26th: “I am expecting a change in the right of the state election committee to intervene in the district election lines,” said Geisel. “I think we have to be more stringent.” It is the classic among Berlin’s problems. The city has been grappling with the difficult relationship between the Senate and the districts since Greater Berlin was founded in 1920.