House of Representatives election | Crosses under pressure

Five more days: There will be elections in Berlin on Sunday. Photo: dpa/Jens Kalaene A dying breed: “For me, ballot box voting is still the most beautiful form of voting,” says Stephan Bröchler. During the House of Representatives election on Sunday, Berlin's state returning officer will also go to a polling station and put his vote there. This applies to fewer and fewer Berliners. While 29.2 percent of Berliners voted by mail in 2016, the figure was 44.5 percent in 2023.

Their share could continue to grow. Bröchler explained at a press conference on Tuesday that 777,806 voting slips had been issued by last Sunday. They are a prerequisite for taking part in postal voting. This corresponds to 28.4 percent of those eligible to vote. In 2021 it was 26 percent at the same time. Bröchler points out whether this indicates greater interest in postal voting or just increased voter turnout, but one cannot directly conclude from the number itself.

Bröchler understands that many people choose to vote by post because they have other obligations on election Sunday. Nevertheless, he is also critical of the development. “Anyone who casts a postal vote is aware that they are making their decision early,” says Bröchler. In doing so, you also deprive yourself of the opportunity to be changed by current events in the last few meters.

Separated from this criticism, Bröchler wants to see the propaganda that is being put forward against postal voting. “Postal voting is not the dirty corner of the organization of democratic elections,” he says. There are repeated allegations, especially from the right, that postal voting is being manipulated, following the example of US President Donald Trump. This is an expression of “a lack of knowledge about postal voting,” says Bröchler. Because there is only one voting slip for each eligible voter, it is technically impossible to cast your vote twice.

The increased number of postal voters is not the only challenge that Bröchler and the state election office face. 2.5 million eligible voters will be able to vote in the House of Representatives election. In the elections for the district council assemblies there are even 2.75 million Berliners. EU foreigners are also allowed to vote there, but third-country nationals are not allowed to vote, as is the case at state level. For the first time, 16 and 17 year olds are also allowed to vote. 40,000 election workers in 2,542 ballot boxes and 1,572 postal voting stations will then count the ballot papers on Sunday evening after 6 p.m.

Bröchler believes it is unlikely that a disaster like 2021 can happen again. Damals musste die Wahl nach einem Entscheid des Landesverfassungsgerichts wiederholt werden. So that this doesn't happen again, you prepare in every way. Three and a half times the number of ballot papers required were printed so that there were no bottlenecks. In the end, everyone should actually be supplied with eight million ballot papers.

Bröchler is also confident that the preparation for the election has been going relatively smoothly so far. There have only been two incidents so far. In August it became known that a candidate from the small party “Die Urbane” had had his first and last names swapped. “There is no choice without mistakes,” says Bröchler. However, the candidate in question was pragmatic and did not demand his right to have the ballot papers reprinted with the correct name.

"We know that Russia is focusing on us."

Another mishap occurred last week: In the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf district, postal voting documents were sent for another district. Six attentive voters noticed this and reported it to the state election office. There it was possible to narrow down the period in which the incorrect documents were mixed in with the correct ones. Bröchler calculates that 1,400 eligible voters would theoretically have been affected. But in the end there were only 38 ballot papers that were declared invalid and replaced.

Bröchler is particularly concerned that false information will be spread before and during the election. "We know that Russia is focusing on us," he says. You can always find false reports on the Internet. Recently, a report made the rounds that the governing mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) had orchestrated a contract murder of a tennis teacher. Photos and videos are sometimes manipulated using artificial intelligence. For example, you can find an apparently fake video on social networks in which members of the House of Representatives beat each other in the plenary hall.

It is almost impossible to prevent such reports from being spread. “It’s important that we can react quickly,” says Bröchler. We are in contact with media companies and the operators of social networks so that in case of doubt the correct report can be spread quickly. They don't want to work towards deleting content - unless it involves "acutely election-threatening" content. Bröchler cites a fake video of a high-ranking state official declaring the election canceled as an example.

To counter fake news, modern technology is also used. “Gretchen AI”, the state election office’s own artificial intelligence, can identify fake news. “The thumb doesn’t go up or down, but rather a probability is given,” says Bröchler. In the nd self-test, however, it works mixed. “Gretchen” responds to a request to examine a newspaper article that she can only check content on social media. The chatbot no longer responds to further messages. In a second attempt, the artificial intelligence correctly recognized at least one video by nd reporter Tim Lüddemann as real.

“We have a lot of trust in Gretchen,” Bröchler replies when asked whether he isn’t afraid that the chatbot could produce false news itself, as happens again and again with language models. We followed the development process closely. Bröchler considers the project to be an example of “political education in the best sense.”

Bröchler assures that election preparation was unaffected by the cyber attack on the Berlin state network two weeks ago. The state electoral office’s digital system is separate from the state network. Detector software is now being used to prevent hacker attacks from occurring up to or on election day itself. “Toi, toi, toi,” says Bröchler and knocks on the table.

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