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Stuttgart (dpa / lsw) - The SPD considers the state election in mid-March to be legally contestable due to the mask requirement in the Corona crisis.
According to the law, members of electoral boards and electoral committees in the polling station should not actually be covered, said the SPD party and parliamentary leader in Baden-Württemberg, Andreas Stoch, of the German press agency.
So that this does not conflict with the mask requirement, a legal basis is needed.
"Otherwise it could be that someone complains against the election and the whole house of cards collapses - so the election is invalid."
He doesn't think the Home Office has this problem on its mind, said Stoch.
According to the state election law, the members of the electoral bodies, their deputies and the secretaries - such as election officers and district election officers - are not allowed to cover their faces when exercising their office.
The Ministry of the Interior and the State Returning Officer had indicated in writing that the ban did not apply to masks to protect against Corona.
But that's not enough, says Stoch.
"The masking harbors legal uncertainty as to the validity of the election."
Stoch also called for the creation of a legal basis in order to prohibit voting by ordinance in extreme hotspots and to be able to switch completely to postal voting.
But this should only be possible in extreme exceptional cases.
Overall, however, the hurdles for postal voting would have to be lowered in view of the corona pandemic so that as many people as possible can participate.
"We have to agree a Lex Corona in law," said Stoch - only for this state election and not permanently.
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The Greens and the municipalities had already called for the hurdles for postal voting in March to be lowered.
The postal voting documents should therefore be sent with the voting notification.
Actually, the documents have to be requested separately.
But above all the CDU parliamentary group slowed down - among other things because of constitutional concerns.
From their point of view, postal voting should remain the exception.
Other states such as Rhineland-Palatinate are making provisions for their state elections, while Baden-Württemberg does not, said Stoch.
In the opinion of the Interior Ministry, a statutory regulation is not necessary.
A corona protective mask does not fall under the ban on face covering in the sense of the state election law, said a spokesman.
The purpose of the legally regulated prohibition of concealment is to “preserve trust in the activity and integrity of the state and its obligation to maintain ideological and religious neutrality”.
A Corona brand does not call into question “trustworthy communication” with voters.
State Election Act