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Not in there. Photo: DPA

Hundreds of Berlin votes found in a bin

Published: 22 Sep 11 08:29 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20110922-37747.html

Hundreds of postal votes for last Sunday’s Berlin state election have been found in a bin – and are now being opened and counted, while criminal police start an investigation.

The daily Tagesspiegel reported on Thursday that at least 379 postal votes, which had been properly sent to the Zehlendorf city hall, had found their way into the bin of a block of flats while on their way to the counting station.

The incident was confirmed by the district mayor for Steglitz-Zehlendorf in the south-west of the city, Norbert Kopp. The votes could change a number of the local council seats, although it is not expected that they could have an effect on the state election results where the differences between the parties was clear.

The state criminal police are investigating to see whether the postal votes were thrown away by a civil servant, or an external courier.

It also emerged on Wednesday that at least one representative in the state parliament will have to be changed after the results of the Greens and those for the socialist Left party were inadvertently swapped. Evrim Baba-Sommer will replace the Social Democrat Karin Seidel-Kalmutzki as a result, the paper reported.

Electoral returning officer for Lichtenburg district Axel Hunger said it seemed the results were simply written into the wrong column on the evening of the vote.

“They are only human; people who sit there from seven in the morning until ten at night, so mistakes can happen,” said Hunger.

The Local/hc

What do you think? Leave your comment below.


Your comments about this article:

10:24 September 22, 2011 by pepsionice
Holy smoke, these Berlin guys must have been watching the voting counting methods of New Jersey and learned a new trick or two. The thing is....you need to have a dozen of these ballot boxes hidden around in various towns...to bring out the extra votes after the official count, if necessary.
11:30 September 22, 2011 by twisted
Are there Republicans training the folks in Berlin on how to subvert an election?
12:32 September 22, 2011 by Celeon
So thats were the missing FDP votes went? ;-D
14:33 September 22, 2011 by delvek
Reminds me of Democrats inspecting ballot tickets! lol

This lady needs a swift kick in the arse, what is she doing? lol
16:06 September 22, 2011 by derExDeutsche
This reminds me of the Al Franken Campaign, lol.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5578458/al_franken_may_have_been_elected_to.html
18:02 September 22, 2011 by neunElf
Please give me an example of "Republican" vote tampering, all of the ones I'm familiar with have been perpetrated by Democrats!

I do not know how you can count and certify 'found" votes.

By their very description they have not been secure so they could easily be tampered with.

I wonder of the person in charge of vote security in King County Washington has taken a similar position in Berlin?

Remember King County, where they had two recounts in 2004 and the Republican won, but then miraculously they found another box of ballots and after counting them the Democrat won, declared victory and refused any more recounts.
18:33 September 22, 2011 by Englishted
@neunElf

G.W.Bush's election result in his brothers own state still looks a little odd.
17:43 September 28, 2011 by raandy
Englishted I was thinking the same, I never believed GB won the first election against All Gore,the secretary of state was a long time friend of the Bushes ,and his brother was Gov. there were a lot of dispersions about the validity of the black votes
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