401 invalid votes, only eight votes counted – in a Bremen constituency there was an embarrassing breakdown during the general election. The reason was an organizational mistake.
The race between the Union and the SPD at federal level was close on election evening, in the constituency of Bremen-Seehausen there was even a draw: the direct candidates from both parties received two votes each. But that was not the only curiosity that the result on Sunday brought to light in this constituency.
A total of 409 votes were cast there in the federal election, but only eight of them were valid – that makes a whopping 401 invalid votes. In the south-west of Bremen, these numbers are astonishing. But what was behind this dropout?
Bundestag election in Bremen: Voters received false ballot papers
The mistake was not made by the voters, that much is clear. Rather, there was an organizational problem: the wrong ballot papers were given out at the polling station. The voters received pieces of paper from a wrong constituency, the mistake was recognized too late. Postal voters: inside, however, received the correct ballot papers.
Thus, the first votes cast for the respective direct candidates of the parties are invalid. From a democratic point of view, this is extremely annoying, since the votes are lost and the political opinion of the voters is not taken into account. For the overall result in the electoral district, however, the overall error is irrelevant, explains state returning officer Andreas Cors. The 400 invalid votes from Seehausen could not have jeopardized the victory of SPD candidate Uwe Schmidt, who defended his parliamentary mandate. The second votes, which are used to vote for the state lists, were, however, counted regularly. There the CDU prevailed with 32.1 percent, ahead of the SPD with 30.4 percent.
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