The breakdown election year 2021 presents the capital with a major task, as the returning officer states. He describes the preparation time for the House of Representatives elections in mid-February as “very short”.
Berlin’s state returning officer, Stephan Bröchler, described the organization of the repeat election to the House of Representatives on February 12 as a “Herculean task”. The period of 90 days for preparation is “very short”, otherwise you have a year to do it, said Bröchler in a special meeting of the interior committee.
The task now is to ensure that the repeat elections function smoothly and that elections “become a celebration of democracy again”. We are now well on our way to preparing. The registrations for the election workers are “very gratifying,” said Bröchler. The now announced payment of 240 euros also contributes to this. Previously there had been an expense allowance of 60 euros.
42,000 election workers are to be deployed. That would be around 8,000 more than in the breakdown election in September 2021, although this time only the House of Representatives and the district assemblies and not the Bundestag should also be elected.
Berlin’s Constitutional Court ruled last week that the election to the House of Representatives must be repeated in its entirety. There were numerous voting errors in last year’s elections, including missing or hastily copied ballot papers, too few ballot boxes, the temporary closure of polling stations and long queues with waiting times of sometimes several hours. In around half of the 2,256 polling stations, voters still voted after the 6:00 p.m. closing time.
Berlin’s Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey has assured that the repeat election on February 12 will run smoothly. “It’s our job to make it better, to make it work,” said the SPD politician in a government statement in the House of Representatives. People should expect elections to go smoothly. “The fact that this wasn’t guaranteed everywhere caused a lot of damage.”
