The elections for the Bundestag and the House of Representatives in Berlin last September were overshadowed by numerous mishaps. The election examination committee of the Bundestag now recommends voting again in many places. The final decision is made by the Bundestag.
The Bundestag Election Review Committee has spoken out in favor of a partial rerun of the Bundestag elections in Berlin. At the request of the three traffic light groups, the committee decided "the partial repeat election in Berlin", as the chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the committee, Johannes Fechner, announced. The resolution provides for a new ballot in 431 of around 2,300 voting districts, with first and second votes. To do this, the September 2021 election would have to be declared invalid in the affected constituencies.
"The electoral glitches must not be swept under the table, they must have consequences," Fechner explained the decision. However, the election would only be repeated in the polling districts with errors, "because the protection of legitimate expectations applies to the votes of the voters and every vote counts," he explained.
The Bundestag plenary must now decide what is planned for Friday about the resolution recommendation. There were numerous mishaps in the elections for the Bundestag and the House of Representatives in Berlin on September 26 last year. There were no ballot papers, and long queues formed in front of the polling stations. Some polling stations closed in between or stayed open much longer than 6 p.m. Accordingly, there were objections to the result.
It is still unclear when the partial repetition of the Bundestag election will take place. Because the Federal Constitutional Court can still be appealed against the expected Bundestag decision. Therefore, a repetition could drag on until 2024. On November 16, the Berlin Constitutional Court will decide whether to repeat the elections to the Berlin House of Representatives and the district assemblies.
