- The Bremen citizenship election is valid
The Citizens' Election of May 2023 in Bremen is valid. The High Court of the Free Hanseatic City announced this. The exclusion of the AfD from the election was lawful, as the presiding judge stated in the reasoning of the judgment. No voting errors were recognizable. The court rejected various complaints against the validity of the election. The judgments are not appealable.
Several AfD members had gone against the election because the party had not been admitted. At the time, the AfD was so divided that two state chairmen had submitted proposals with candidates. However, only one list per party is permitted. The state election committee then rejected all election proposals from the AfD. Individual AfD members and the Bremen AfD state association filed objections.
Divided AfD submitted invalid proposals
The election review court dealt with the objections and decided in December that the exclusion of the AfD was lawful. The party members did not accept the decision and went to the next instance. Since early July, the High Court has been dealing with the complaints, separately for the electoral areas of Bremen and Bremerhaven.
The presiding judge now stated that the admission of a state list should ensure the proper conduct of the election and a certain seriousness of the election proposals. The provision that election proposals from parties are only valid if they are signed by their state chairman also pursues an important goal. It is indispensable that each party submits only one election proposal so that the parties can fulfill their role in political will formation.
In the opinion of the court, the state election committee and the election review court have made proper decisions. The decisions of the High Court were unanimous.
The red-green-red government has been in office for over a year. In the election to the Bremen Citizens' Assembly on May 14, 2023, the SPD under Mayor Andreas Bovenschulte became the strongest force and continued its coalition with the Greens and the Left Party. This unique alliance in West Germany has been governing together since 2019.
Complaint against the use of software in the election
The High Court also dealt with a complaint from a private individual who objected to the electronic vote counting in the Citizens' Election. The court also unanimously rejected this complaint.
The use of an electronic vote counting system does not constitute a violation of the principle of the publicity of the election. There are also no violations of the Bremen Election Law or the State Election Ordinance.
The complaint against the electronic vote counting in the Citizens' Election was handled by the High Court of the Free Hanseatic City. They unanimously rejected this complaint, stating that the use of the electronic system did not violate any election laws.
Following the election review court's decision in December, several AfD members did not accept the lawful exclusion of their party and brought their complaints to the High Court of the Free Hanseatic City.
