Trouble over FDP electoral lists: Party defends itself against member’s allegations

Will the FDP run in the federal election with several invalid state lists? The Liberals have to deal with this accusation just four weeks before the vote. According to media reports, a party member had lodged a complaint with several state returning officers.

“Table Media” initially reported on the incident. According to the online medium, a member lodged a complaint on Monday against the formation procedures in 14 regional associations. Only Berlin and Lower Saxony were not affected.

The accusation: At the party conferences of the other state associations, the delegates were not given pre-prepared ballot papers with the option to tick. Instead, they had to handwrite “yes”, “no” or “abstention” on the slips of paper when voting on the respective candidates. But this could theoretically make them identifiable.

The complainant also complained that the delegates were sitting close together and that this also violated the rule of secret voting.

The FDP rejected the allegations. General Secretary Marco Buschmann wrote on the short message service

Experts see this in a more nuanced way. “I believe there is nothing to the complaints,” says party lawyer Martin Morlok. Of course it would be better if voting booths and pre-printed ballot papers were used: “But you shouldn’t overstretch the requirements for a party, especially since they also have to be applicable to district party conferences.” Morlok assumes that the practice of voting without voting booths and without pre-printed ballot papers would therefore be accepted in the event of a legal review: “In general, one should not impose too strict conditions on parties. Party life must also be manageable.”

The Cologne lawyer and party lawyer Sebastian Roßner assesses the process differently. “When assessing whether the election was secret, a stricter standard applies than for other elections within a party, such as the party executive committee, because it is an important step in the preparation of the federal election,” he told the star. Therefore, the events at some selection meetings, if they took place in this way, should be “judged critically”: “If the name of the preferred candidate has to be written by hand on a piece of paper by the members of the selection meeting, there may be enough handwritten material to do this to identify the respective member, especially since comparative material is usually available from the attendance lists.”

Such a procedure could also create a “preliminary effect”: “As a member of the assembly meeting, you know that you could possibly be identified and perhaps adjust your voting behavior accordingly.”

If the respective state election authorities upheld the complaints, the party could appeal to the Federal Election Committee. In the worst case, the FDP is threatened with the non-admission of state lists for the federal election.

This has already happened in the past. The Saar Greens were not allowed to run with a state list in the 2021 federal election because, in the opinion of the Federal Election Committee, serious electoral errors were made during the list.