Some strange scenes took place in Berlin on election day. In some places ballot papers ran out, probably also because of the Berlin marathon that was taking place at the same time. The fire brigade had to open the polling station in two districts.
There were several election breakdowns in Berlin on Sunday. Ballot papers were mixed up, resulting in delays and invalid votes. In addition, the ballot papers are said to have run out in several polling stations. The waiting times were sometimes up to two hours.
The districts Friedrichshain / Kreuzberg and Charlottenburg / Wilmersdorf were affected by the swapped ballot papers. In polling stations 404, 407 and 408 in the Spartacus Elementary School in Friedrichshain, according to information from the polling station, only ballot papers from Charlottenburg / Wilmersdorf were available for the House of Representatives election. Until the correct ballot papers were delivered, the polling stations had to be temporarily closed. Afterwards, too, there was only a delay. In addition, some votes on false ballot papers had to be declared invalid.
Berlin: fire brigade must open polling station
In two districts there was also the curiosity that the voters only came to the polling station with the help of the fire brigade: Due to problems with the electronic locking system, the election team did not get to the student union’s North cafeteria building in time as planned, with polling stations 102 and 106 in the district Center. “We had to call the fire brigade who could open the building with the emergency key,” said election officer Alexander Radebach of the German press agency in Berlin.
As a result, the polling stations were only able to open after a delay. This also caused a queue of voters to form. They had to wait a while before everything went back to normal. He was not aware of any case of someone who was unable to choose because of it. “There are solutions,” said Radebach.
As reported by the AFP news agency, the election slip replenishment was delayed in some places because of the Berlin marathon, which is also taking place this Sunday.
Berlin: Up to two hours of waiting in front of the polling station
Meanwhile, the district office in Mitte called on voters to “make their way to the polling station as quickly as possible” and to plan for “a longer waiting time”. For polling station 100, the waiting time is “currently over 2 hours”.
In the morning it became clear that there would be long queues in front of numerous polling stations across the city. For the timely casting of votes, this means, according to information from the office of the regional returning officer: Anyone who stands in line until 6 p.m. can still vote.
Several factors were given as reasons for the waiting times. On the one hand, there were four decisions pending in Berlin, with a correspondingly large number of ballot papers, some of which were long. In addition to the general election, there was also an election for the House of Representatives. In addition, over twelve district parliaments were redefined. In addition, voters could vote on whether large housing groups with more than 3,000 apartments should be expropriated.
In addition, there are the corona-related hygiene measures that have already led to delays in other elections compared to the otherwise usual procedure. In Berlin, numerous election workers have also dropped out. They should be replaced by successors.
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