Berlin steps back into the voting booth with shame on his cheeks

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  Walter Black

  correspondent Germany

A downfall. A disgrace. The German capital Berlin received the scorn of the whole country after the disastrous elections of 2021. The organization turned out to have made so many mistakes that a court declared the result invalid. Today 2.5 million Berliners can go to the polls again. But repeating the elections does not solve the problems.

Political scientist Stephan Bröchler is crystal clear in his conclusion: “What we experienced on September 26, 2021 was not an industrial accident or a natural phenomenon that happened to us, but the result of structural errors.”

Professor Bröchler was part of the committee that investigated the failed elections in Berlin. He was also able to draw on his own experiences. “My wife and I stood in line for an hour and a half to vote and knew: something is going wrong here. I looked at my phone and immediately read that the problems were not limited to my own polling station.”

There appeared to be a shortage of voting booths in various places in the city. Voters also needed much more time to fill out their ballots than the organization had calculated. Berlin not only chose a new municipal council and new district councils that day, there were also national elections for the Bundestag.

To complicate matters, the Berlin Marathon was taking place at the same time, which closed off large parts of the city to traffic. Voters and employees could not reach polling stations. When they also resolutely closed their doors at 6 p.m., hundreds of people were left frustrated on the sidewalk. A cocktail of mistakes that left the city with a serious hangover.

More than a year later, in November 2022, the Berlin Constitutional Court dismissed the election results. Within three months, the ballot box had to be repeated under exactly the same circumstances; as if it were still September 26, 2021.

“But that is of course not possible at all,” explains Stephan Bröchler, who has since been appointed chairman of the electoral commission and is now ultimately responsible for the new ballot box. “It is no longer 2021. We now have a war in Ukraine and there have been all kinds of political developments. Anyway, the law prescribes: as few changes as possible.”

That leads to all kinds of strange situations; for example on the ballot papers. For example, politician Ingrid Bertermann from the Mitte district recently switched from De Groenen to the socialist party Die Linke. But in the repeat elections, Bertermann simply has to return to place 17 on the candidate list of her old party, to everyone’s chagrin. On the website, De Groenen have replaced her photo with a gray area stating that she no member more.

The situation is even more exceptional with the number 2 of De Groenen. Stephan van Dassel made it to district mayor in the previous elections. But following allegations of a conflict of interest, he was expelled last September. Here too, however, the 2021 ballot box must be repeated as precisely as possible. So Van Dassel is just back in 2nd place.

Only candidates who have died or moved have been removed from the lists.

This frustrates the work of electoral council chairman Bröchler. The short preparation period of three months and the strict requirements of the judge limit his possibilities to really reform the Berlin elections. For example, he was not allowed to add new polling stations.

“I am like a king without a kingdom,” he sighs. “The responsibility for the entire election rests on me, but I have no rights. So nothing has come of building a new organizational structure. That really has to change later.”

However, Bröchler and the electoral commission guarantee that enough repairs have been made to prevent a repeat of the disgrace today. “The number of voting booths has been increased in various places and even more can be added in the event of unforeseen crowds. More managers are present on location. And problems with ballot papers have also been addressed.”

Finally, voters are no longer sent away at 6 p.m. The classrooms will close, but “everyone who is already in line at 6 p.m., and has therefore done everything right, can still cast his or her vote.” As long as that takes.

But that could mean that some voters already know the first forecasts of the result before they step into the box. Bröchler: “Of course that is not appropriate, but we have to weigh up the right to vote against some prior knowledge of voters. In that case, the right to vote clearly takes precedence for me.”

Whether the Berliners will also have to go to the polls again for the Bundestag elections, the highest court in the country has yet to pass judgment.