Schwerin (dpa/mv) – Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s city and community day calls for early and comprehensive preparation for the European and local elections in just over a year. “The Berlin elections show that an election day has to be carefully prepared,” it said in a statement on Friday. In the federal capital, the elections to the House of Representatives had to be repeated due to serious violations of the law.
The municipal association also spoke out in favor of changing the state and municipal election law. The maximum age previously anchored there for directly elected officials such as mayors and district administrators of 60 years for first-time applicants and 64 years for repeat applicants is superfluous and age-discriminatory. Applicants would have to decide for themselves whether they would still be able to hold office for another seven to nine years. According to a board resolution, voters and not legislators should have the last word.
The city and community day called on the state government and state parliament to create the conditions for a smooth election in spring 2024 in good time. The lowering of the European voting age to 16 offers the opportunity to involve young people more in the electoral boards. As has already happened in other federal states, special training programs should also be developed in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. Many older electoral boards had already declared in 2019 that they would no longer be available for future elections.
The demands of the city and community day also include an increase in the expense allowance for election committees, a simplification of the election records and uniform election software to prevent unnecessary duplication of work. Suggestions for simplifying the counting of votes were made. The evaluation of the local elections in May 2019 also showed that new solutions would be needed for 2024, when European and local elections are likely to coincide again, in order to be able to conduct the elections correctly.
