Now it is official: Berliners will soon be able to vote in a referendum on the question of whether large real estate groups should be socialized in the capital.
"I can see that the referendum of the sponsor" Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co "has come about," said the regional election officer Petra Michaelis on Thursday.
Around a week after handing over the signatures on the question that had been collected over the course of weeks to the state election control, the official examination by the Berlin district offices has now been completed.
According to this, almost 273,000 signatures were checked.
183,711 of these were valid, said the state election control further.
This means that the necessary quorum for the referendum has been reached.
According to the regional election officer, the initiative had collected and handed over more than 359,000 signatures.
According to the regulation in the Voting Act, the district offices only had to check so many signatures until the quorum was reached.
"Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co" is committed to socializing real estate companies with more than 3,000 apartments, ie expropriating them for billions in compensation.
For a successful referendum, the signatures of around seven percent of Berlin's eligible voters were required, i.e. 171,783 valid signatures.