Berlin showed with its breakdown election a year ago how democratic votes should not take place under any circumstances. The more outrageous circumstances and errors came to light, the greater the horror that such electoral chaos was possible in the German capital. Hour-long queues, mixed-up ballot papers, the temporary closure of polling stations and voting that stretched well beyond 6 p.m. in half of the polling stations are just the most outstanding examples of the disaster.
For German politics, which prides itself on its democracy and wants to teach it to other countries, the election in Berlin is a cause for shame. For conspiracy theorists of all persuasions it is a found fodder.
The bang of the Berlin Court of Justice last week was therefore appropriate: Only a complete repetition of the elections could create a constitutional situation, re-establish the legitimacy of the parliament and revive the trust of the citizens in democracy. Although this is not yet a judgment, but a legal assessment. But it seems impossible that the state constitutional court will fall behind them.
Diametrically opposite conclusions
One might have expected the Bundestag Election Review Committee to follow the Court’s example and make a similar decision on the Bundestag elections in Berlin. But that is by no means the case. Rather, the representatives of the traffic light have decided on diametrically opposed conclusions.
At a hearing in May, the Federal Returning Officer called for the Bundestag election to be repeated in half of Berlin’s constituencies. The traffic light did not want to follow this vote. She only wanted to repeat the election in just over 400 of almost 2,300 polling stations. Now the traffic light has reduced this number again, there should only be new elections in 300 polling stations.
This reduction was achieved by the traffic light representatives simply stating that voting by 6:45 p.m. was not to be considered a voting error. The limit had previously been set at 6:30 p.m. In fact, the Constitutional Court found that because of the long queues in front of the polling stations, elections were held “across the board” after 6 p.m.
The arbitrary setting of 6.45 p.m. as a still acceptable time for a federal election reveals a strange understanding of democracy. It is also strange that a polling station closure for up to 15 minutes should not be considered a voting error. It is quite absurd that according to the will of the traffic light, only the second vote, but not the first vote, should be cast again in the 300 voting districts.
The same ballot
How are the citizens supposed to understand that? In the end, both votes were cast on the same ballot, at the same polling station, and after waiting in the same queue (a pleasure many voters chose not to indulge in).
How could there be two such different conclusions? Representatives of the traffic light point out that they should have followed the principle of the least possible interference in an election so that a decision before the Federal Constitutional Court finds favor. This is nothing more than an excuse. Rather, the vote of the traffic light majority is the lowest common denominator, if not to say a politically motivated rotten compromise.
Above all, the Greens and the FDP had no interest in a complete or larger-scale new election. They assume that such an election could cost them one mandate or another. The Greens have also won three of their 16 direct mandates in Berlin. If the first vote is not cast again, you cannot lose a direct mandate in Berlin-Pankow that you have just won.
It would have been best if the Greens and the FDP had cleared up the issue before the summer break and ideally not re-elected at all. After the clear statement by the Berlin Constitutional Court, however, that no longer seemed possible.
In view of these manipulations, the question arises as to whether the Bundestag itself should continue to examine the federal elections. Because that means that parliamentarians decide “about their own future and the mandates of their colleagues,” as SPD MP Johannes Fechner has just noted.
The election review committee would have to be dissolved and objections to be reviewed by the Federal Constitutional Court in the future. The unworthy haggling of the traffic light parties in the Bundestag suggests this, as does the salvation of democracy, which the Berlin Constitutional Court has striven for.
