SPD candidate Tobias Schick elected mayor of Cottbus

Tobias Schick from the SPD has been elected mayor of the city of Cottbus. In the runoff election on Sunday, he got 68.6 percent of the votes according to the preliminary final result. This is evident from the figures from the city of Cottbus [cottbus.de]. Competitor Lars Schieske from the AfD received 31.4 percent of the vote.

Around an hour and a half before all the votes were counted, Lars Schieske congratulated Tobias Schick on his victory at his election party. At this point, more than half of the votes had been counted and Schick was ahead with over 60 percent.

Almost 79,000 Cottbus residents were called upon to elect a new mayor. The turnout was 55.2 percent and thus even higher than in the first ballot at the beginning of September, when 53.3 percent of those entitled to vote cast their votes. The candidates Schick and Schieske had already voted in the morning. Schick cast his vote in the Lausitzer sports school in the Spremberg suburb, Schieske in a polling station in the Kiekebusch district.

In the September 11 election, SPD candidate Schick got 31.8 percent of the votes, AfD candidate Schieske received 26.4 percent. None of the seven candidates achieved an absolute majority in the first round.

CDU, Greens, Left and FDP, some of whom had their own candidates for the mayoral election, Schick had pledged their support for the runoff after the first ballot. The SPD man was also supported by entrepreneurs and an alliance of parties, trade unions, the Protestant church, the university and the state theater. The previous CDU mayor, Holger Kelch, did not appear for health reasons.

After the polling stations were closed, the election officer had all ballot papers checked to be on the safe side. Because a polling card is not only handed in for postal voting, but can also be used if someone votes in a different polling station than registered, for example. You can vote at any polling station with a polling card.

The bill may only be used once, said election officer Carsten Konzack of the German Press Agency. “But if someone copied something, they could cast two votes and that wouldn’t be legal.” Legal certainty should be created by comparing the ballot paper and voter register.

Normally the ballot papers are checked later. The background is that on Friday a ballot was applied for a woman who was already dead.

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Broadcast: rbb24 Inforadio, October 9th, 2022, 9:00 p.m