According to the Senate Interior Administration, the new Berlin state election authority is to be appointed at the beginning of September. The interior administration did not say which person it will be. According to Tagesspiegel information, final talks are still taking place. The appointment of a new management and the hiring of new clerks should take a little longer and take place by mid-October.
The previous state returning officer, Petra Michaelis, resigned shortly after the Bundestag and House of Representatives elections on September 26, 2021, after numerous mishaps had occurred.
The Council of Mayors met on Thursday to consider the proposals of the independent commission of experts. At the beginning of July, they presented recommendations on how the organization of elections in Berlin could be better in the future. The Mayor’s Council consists of the Governing Mayor Franziska Giffey (SPD), Mayor Klaus Lederer (Left Party), Mayor Bettina Jarasch (Green Party) and the twelve district mayors.
According to information from the Tagesspiegel, the mayors’ meeting also discussed asking administrative staff to work on election days in the future. Which activities they should take on exactly seems to be unclear. At the beginning of August, the interior administration set up a task force that is currently developing uniform standards for elections.
The working group “Good elections in Berlin” reports to the task force and will meet for the first time on Friday. The district returning officers and the heads of the electoral office as well as employees of the Senate administration and the head of the task force will be present from the districts. The meeting is expected to last five to six hours.
According to information from the Tagesspiegel, the central area of responsibility of the “Good Elections” working group will be to formulate target agreements between the state of Berlin and the districts – and also to determine which tasks are exactly responsible for which departments.
As already reported, the members of the “AG Gute Wahlen” will be divided into further working groups that deal with various aspects of election organization. Among other things, according to the Senate Interior Administration, a city-wide polling station concept is to be developed. The aim is to develop uniform standards for equipping the polling stations and for the logistics involved in distributing ballot papers.
A security concept for ballot paper production and distribution is to be standardized for all districts. The plan is for external service providers to set up the polling stations in the future. Another working group will deal with the election workers and their qualifications. It should be about how the electoral workers can be trained in a meaningful way. Questions of remuneration should also be discussed.
According to Tagesspiegel information, the Senate wants to implement all improvements to the election organization in a timely manner that do not require constitutional changes. This would require a two-thirds majority in the House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, a repetition of the federal elections in many parts of Berlin is becoming increasingly likely. This emerges from a draft resolution of the Election Review Committee, which the online magazine “The Pioneer” reported on Wednesday.
