Election to the House of Representatives
House of Representatives election: Around 450 ballot letters were left behind
Red ballot letters are sorted in a postal polling station in Berlin (archive photo): “The slips were there, but were not forwarded correctly.” photo
© Maja Hitij/dpa
There was no series of breakdowns like in the 2021 parliamentary elections in Berlin on Sunday. But ballot letters were left behind in one district. What does this mean for government formation?
In the Berlin district of Lichtenberg, two days after the repeat election, the votes from around 450 absentee ballot letters have not yet been taken into account. The votes are to be counted publicly on Wednesday, as announced by the district office.
According to state returning officer Stephan Bröchler, the 466 letters apparently arrived quite late in the Lichtenberg district and were left lying around during the count on Sunday. “How it came about is still being examined. There were obviously communication problems in this district election office,” Bröchler explained.
The result of the count on Wednesday will be sent to the district election committee, according to the Lichtenberg district. Next Monday (February 20th) the overall result of the election for the district of Lichtenberg should be announced.
It is not yet possible to foresee what the consequences will be when the votes are counted. But according to the provisional result of the Berlin parliamentary elections so far, the SPD is only a hair’s breadth in second place with 105 votes ahead of the Greens in third place. State Returning Officer Bröchler was initially unable to assess whether anything could change later.
Time is also pressing for organizational reasons: According to Bröchler, the district election committees will meet from Monday to Wednesday. “There is pressure from all sides. And that’s a good thing.” On February 27, the state electoral committee meets and a few days later determines the official final result.
Lichtenberg district is not a Green stronghold
Even if it were mathematically possible for the Greens to overtake the SPD due to the postal votes still to be counted, the probability of this is not particularly high: the district of Lichtenberg is not a Green stronghold. The party got 11.7 percent of the votes there on Sunday, the SPD 16.2 percent. The CDU was at the top of the list with 25.4 percent.
In the hypothetical case that the Greens still become the second strongest force, this should have a decisive impact on the possible renewal of the government alliance of SPD, Greens and Left Party, in which the SPD, as the strongest force, provides the Governing Mayor.
The SPD and the Greens had announced that they wanted to hold exploratory talks with their current coalition partners. Dates for this have not yet been announced. The CDU wants to meet with the Greens and the SPD on Friday for the first exploratory talks.
State Returning Officers overall satisfied
There is currently no evidence that further incidents have occurred, said Bröchler. As soon as the result is available, he will go public with it. “It is important that no voice has been lost.”
After the election on Sunday, Bröchler was generally satisfied with how things went. Unlike in September 2021, this time there were no long queues in front of the polling stations, the ballot papers had not run out, and votes well after 6 p.m. were not reported.
On Monday, however, Bröchler spoke of a “very annoying mistake” in one of the 2,257 polling stations. According to him, 115 false ballot papers were distributed there for first votes. However, that was neither relevant for the result of the first vote there nor for the outcome of the election as a whole. Other minor “very low-threshold” errors in various polling stations were quickly corrected.