© dpa
Postal voting for the Bundestag elections on February 23 will start earlier than previously planned in some Berlin districts. Instead of February 10, the mailing of documents will begin this week, according to a survey by the German Press Agency.
The districts of Neukölln and Steglitz-Zehlendorf, for example, announced that they will start on Thursday or Friday after receiving the first ballot papers from printers. In Lichtenberg it will start on Friday.
The Tempelhof-Schöneberg district is expecting the first postal ballot letters to be collected by postal service providers for dispatch during the course of the day. By Saturday, all postal voting documents requested so far should have been sent out. Other districts such as Mitte or Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg, on the other hand, will only start on Monday, as originally planned.
According to Stephan Bröchler, the state election director, the dispatch of the 3.3 million ballot papers - including a reserve - from printing works to the districts is now underway. There are different schedules for this depending on the district, with delivery taking place gradually over the course of the week. "This also explains the different speeds at which postal voting documents are sent out," said Bröchler. He expressly welcomed the fact that some districts are already starting now and referred to the tight deadline for postal voting. Due to the early Bundestag elections, this has been reduced from the usual six weeks to just two weeks.
According to Bröchler, around 603,000 Berliners have applied for postal voting since January 13, when the election notifications were sent out. That is around a quarter of the 2.4 million eligible voters. According to him, this corresponds to the level at the same time before the 2021 Bundestag election (including the partial rerun in 2024). Due to the tight time window and possibly longer postal delivery times, the districts want to prioritize sending the documents to Germans living abroad, it said. However, postal voting is also a particular challenge for voters in Germany this time - the ballot paper and ballot should not be left unfilled at home for long after receipt, advises Bröchler.
The letter must be received by the relevant district electoral office by 6 p.m. on election day on February 23. Otherwise the votes will not be taken into account. Postal voting applications can be submitted online, by email or post, as well as directly at the district postal voting offices. Bröchler recommends the latter option as the safest way to cast your vote before election day. It is also possible to vote directly with the documents at the postal voting centers. This eliminates the need to send them back by post, which can take several days. Absentee ballots filled out at home can also be deposited in the mailboxes of these centers.
Important: The postal voting offices will open uniformly throughout Berlin on Monday, February 10. In many cases, they will have longer opening hours than usual. Some are also open on Saturday, February 15.