Bundestag election in Berlin will be partially repeated on February 11

During the Bundestag elections in September 2021, long queues formed outside some polling stations in the capital, for example because ballot papers were missing or there were too few polling booths. Some polling stations remained open until well after 6 p.m., when the first predictions about the outcome were published.

Later, there were more than 1,700 objections to the election, including from the then Federal Returning Officer himself. In November 2022, the Bundestag decided that the election should be repeated due to voting errors in 431 Berlin constituencies. This was not enough for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. It turned to the Federal Constitutional Court to ensure that the second votes for the party lists in half of Berlin's constituencies were cast again.

However, the Federal Constitutional Court has now rejected such a significant expansion, as well as a repetition in the whole of Berlin. As a result, the Bundestag decision was largely lawful, said court vice-president Doris König. However, the parliament had "insufficiently clarified the election process". The Constitutional Court made up for this.

Following its examination, it declared the election invalid in some other constituencies and annulled the declaration of invalidity in others. Following the ruling, the Bundestag election will have to be repeated in 455 of Berlin's 2256 constituencies.

Long waiting times are not in themselves an electoral error, the judges explained. However, they were an indication that there were too few booths or ballot papers - and therefore the electoral regulations had been breached. The limit was drawn at one hour waiting time. After that, it could "no longer be explained by the particular rush during so-called peak times".

It ruled similarly on voting after 6.00 pm. In itself, it was not an electoral error if the eligible voters had arrived at the polling station on time. However, the opening of a polling station after 6.30 p.m. was an indication that it was not sufficiently equipped.

On Tuesday, the court also declared an electoral review complaint by the AfD parliamentary group to be inadmissible. The party had demanded a complete rerun of the Bundestag election in Berlin. However, the court stated that it had not given sufficient reasons for this.

Stephan Bröchler, the Berlin state election director, announced in Karlsruhe that the partial rerun would take place on February 11. The planning that had already begun could now be implemented. Berlin's Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) declared that he had "full confidence" in Bröchler.

There was a consensus among politicians that the composition of the Bundestag would probably not change significantly even after the partial repeat. This "should have no effect at all on the majority", said SPD MP Johannes Fechner in Karlsruhe.

The Left Party, which had only entered the Bundestag thanks to two direct mandates in Berlin, was relieved. "The two directly won constituencies are not in danger," said party deputy leader Katina Schubert after the ruling. Although there will be new elections in both constituencies, they will only be held in a few districts.

Dietmar Bartsch, former leader of the former Left Party parliamentary group in the Bundestag, told the Rheinische Post newspaper: "We will remain in the German Bundestag as Die Linke until the end of the legislative period and will fulfill our role as the social opposition."

"This ruling strengthens democracy and once again makes it abundantly clear that electoral mistakes are not a venial sin, but must have consequences in case of doubt," FDP federal vice-chairman Wolfgang Kubicki told the newspaper.

The Berlin state chairs of the Greens, Nina Stahr and Philmon Ghirmai, declared: "The investigation must continue, structural improvements in the preparation and conduct of elections must be consistently advanced."

For the Berlin AfD, state leader Kristin Brinker welcomed the ruling. "In a functioning democracy, election results must be free from any doubt about how they came about," she explained.