Bundestag election in Berlin must be partly repeated
Due to numerous mishaps in the 2021 Bundestag elections in Berlin, according to a ruling by the Federal Constitutional Court, the citizens of the capital will have to vote again in 455 of the 2256 constituencies and the corresponding postal voting districts. There are only two months to do so.
Due to numerous glitches, the 2021 Bundestag election in Berlin will have to be partially repeated. This was decided by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. The election must be repeated in 455 constituencies and the associated postal voting districts, said the presiding judge, Doris König. The repeat election must be held as a two-vote election, i.e. with first and second votes.
An electoral review appeal by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag was therefore only partially successful. In its ruling, the highest German court did not follow the decision of the Bundestag one-to-one. The Bundestag had decided with the votes of the SPD, Greens and FDP parliamentary groups that the election should be partially repeated. This would have affected 327 of the capital's 2256 constituencies and 104 of the 1507 postal voting districts.
In the view of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, however, the decision was unlawful, partly because the Bundestag had not declared the election invalid in six constituencies contested by the Federal Returning Officer. It therefore brought an action in Karlsruhe. The Federal Constitutional Court has now declared the election invalid in a further 31 constituencies as mentioned in the Bundestag's decision. However, the decision was largely lawful.
The Left Party can breathe a sigh of relief. It only entered the Bundestag in 2021 by winning three direct mandates because it did not get over the 5% threshold. Two of these seats came from Berlin - from Gregor Gysi and Gesine Lötzsch. In a re-election, the loss of a direct mandate would have meant that the entire parliamentary group would have been kicked out of the Bundestag. According to election researcher Thorsten Faas from the Free University of Berlin, however, there is no threat of this happening. In the polling stations of Gysi and Lötzsch, there will be new elections in some polling stations, but "that is too little to shift the result there", writes Faas on X.
Chaotic election day
Election day on September 26, 2021 was chaotic at many polling stations in Berlin: People had to wait a long time and queue, ballot papers were incorrect or missing altogether. Polling stations had to close temporarily or remained open until well after 6 pm - the time when voting should actually be over. This is when the first predictions of the result are usually made.
The Bundestag received 1713 objections to the Bundestag election in the state of Berlin, including one from the Federal Returning Officer. That is around eight times as many objections as in previous elections, said Judge Peter Müller at the hearing in July. The fact that so much time has passed since the election was explained by Judge Müller with the two-stage review procedure: first it is a matter for the Bundestag and only later for the Constitutional Court. Due to the high number of appeals, Müller said that even with the greatest possible acceleration, an earlier date would not have been possible.
Due to the mishaps on September 26, 2021, the Berlin Constitutional Court had declared the election to the House of Representatives invalid due to "serious systemic deficiencies" and numerous electoral errors. This election was completely repeated on February 12, 2023 - with the result that a black-red coalition replaced the three-party alliance of SPD, Greens and Left Party, which had governed since 2016.
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The Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has ordered a partial re-run of the 2021 Bundestag elections in Berlin due to numerous mishaps, affecting 455 constituencies and corresponding postal voting districts. Despite the CDU/CSU parliamentary group's electoral review appeal, the court did not fully agree with the Bundestag's original decision, extending the re-run to more areas than initially planned.
Source: www.ntv.de
