The first is Paul Wenning.

At five to eight the pensioner comes to the school yard at Landgraben in Bergen-Enkheim.

The sun is shining graciously, the morning cold is still there, the German flag is waving on the metal mast.

Paul Wenning actually wanted to vote by postal vote this year.

He has the completed documents with him in his black leather bag.

But his wife was worried that the ballot would arrive in the mail on time.

Alexander Juergs

Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.

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So Wenning changed his mind and now goes to the polling station in the Bergen elementary school. And in a pinch, if there are problems because he actually decided to vote by mail, then he also takes the bus and train to the city center to hand in his documents at the postal polling station. Under no circumstances should his voice deteriorate. To be out so early, says the pensioner, is nothing special for him. "I get up early, I'm usually up at five o'clock anyway."

Wenning was in a polling station for the first time in 1949, in Düsseldorf, either on Lorettostraße or in the police headquarters, he doesn't remember exactly anymore.

He was six years old at the time, and his parents took him to vote.

When asked who he would vote for, he is said to have replied: I would vote for Papa.

But that wasn't even on the ballot paper.

“I have no idea” who will win the election

And this time?

Who will win this Sunday?

“I have no idea,” says Paul Wenning.

It was seldom as close as this year.

No one can predict with any certainty which government will take over the helm in the near future.

Wenning is certain of only one thing: "We will never get the callousness of a physicist again."

In the polling station of the electoral district 680/02, in the cafeteria in the modern extension of the elementary school, one of a total of 376 polling stations in Frankfurt, the pensioner is helped quickly. A look at the electoral roll shows: no blocking notice. So he can exchange his postal voting slip for an on-site voting slip. He makes his crosses in the cabin and is spared the drive to the city center.

What Wenning had planned and then didn't do in the end, namely voting by postal vote, was done in Frankfurt this year by more people than ever before.

The electoral office proudly announced the record at the beginning of the week.

As of Friday evening, it was 40.65 percent of those eligible to vote in Frankfurt who had requested the vote by post for the federal election.

Of course, this record number is primarily due to the corona pandemic.

But the trend towards voting in your own four walls rather than in the voting booth has been observed by the employees of the electoral office for much longer.

It has never been as easy for postal voters as it has been this year: In order to get to the election documents, nothing more was necessary than scanning a QR code with the smartphone.

350 liters of disinfectant, 20,000 meters of adhesive tape

The fact that a lot has been done to protect those who still vote at the polling station can be seen from the shopping list of the central election office: 5500 FFP2 masks, 62,000 surgical masks, 350 liters of disinfectant, 29,000 disinfectant wipes, 20,000 meters Barrier tape and a lot of anti-spit walls were procured for the election in Frankfurt.

"I wasn't worried about Corona," says Greta Willmeroth, who walks across the courtyard of the school on Landgraben after she has voted.

"Everything was well organized, everyone was wearing masks, I was vaccinated twice." It is not particularly important to her that she voted at the polling station.

She has "checked out a bit" about the postal vote, and is about to have an ice cream around the corner.