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Magdeburg (dpa / sa) - The state parliament wants to make it easier for small parties to participate in the state elections in the summer.
The necessary number of signatures that small parties have to collect to participate in the election is to be significantly reduced because of the corona pandemic.
To this end, on Thursday Parliament launched an amendment to the electoral law.
In doing so, the state parliament is responding, among other things, to a demand made by Free Voters, who have been calling for a corresponding relaxation for months and who would benefit from it.
So far, parties that are not represented in the state parliament or the Bundestag, such as the Free Voters, have had to collect 1,000 signatures in order to be able to participate in the election with a state list.
Direct candidates must collect an additional 100 signatures.
The state government now wants to lower both values by 70 percent, i.e. to 30 signatures per candidate and 300 for the list.
Candidates for the upcoming mayor and district council elections should only have to collect 50 signatures.
However, the simplified regulations are to be limited to the duration of the Corona crisis.
The free voters recently complained that they had to collect the signatures under the conditions of the contact regulations, which was both dangerous and more complicated than it was before the crisis.
According to its own statements, the party was flashed by the state returning officer, the coalition of CDU, SPD and Greens now responded to the criticism and introduced the proposed amendment to the state parliament.
Parliament referred the request to the Home Affairs Committee on Thursday, and the House could then decide on the change in March.
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