It's been a good ten months since the Hessian local elections, and the new city councilors and community representatives have long since switched to day-to-day political business.

But not Martin Oehler.

The pugnacious local politician and parliamentary group leader of the Niedernhausen Open List (OLN) fights a lonely but stubborn fight against the determination of the validity of the election in his home community.

His application to declare the elections for the municipal council and the local advisory councils invalid has been pending with the administrative court in Wiesbaden since May last year.

Oliver Bock

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Rheingau-Taunus district and for Wiesbaden.

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Because Oehler is absolutely convinced that the election result would have been different if everything had been done correctly.

Oehler does not expect a quick verdict in the pending administrative dispute, because at his instigation the public prosecutor's office is investigating "against unknown" for breach of seal and voter fraud.

This procedure is also about the at least highly embarrassing mistake in the town hall before the local elections in Niedernhausen and the processes and decisions afterwards.

Samples were sent out instead of real ballot papers

In the days following the local elections, the unusually high number of invalid ballots came as a surprise and sparked debate among voters. It turned out that of the 573 ballot papers initially assessed as invalid, 345 had not been counted simply because they were clearly marked as “sample” and therefore did not meet official requirements. All 11,568 eligible voters received such sample ballot papers a few weeks before the election in order to be able to prepare for the possibility of cumulating and splitting votes. Oehler had and has no objections to this.

However, an unknown number of postal voters also received these model ballot papers for the actual official election, and 345 voters sent them back with their crosses filled out.

These ballot papers were rejected as invalid when counted by the electoral boards, whereupon 29 objections to the validity of the election were received at City Hall.

Finally, a majority decided to declare the result of the local elections “incorrect” with regard to the model ballot papers that had been declared invalid and to add those postal votes that had been declared invalid solely because of the “model” lettering to the previous final result.

The CDU and SPD were united behind this proposal by Electoral Officer Steffen Lauber.

Amendments from the smaller groups calling for a recount of all postal votes and the establishment of an election scrutiny committee were defeated.

Successful complaint to the Attorney General's Office

Most of the critics of the time came to terms with this supposed “cure” of the mistake in counting postal votes. But Oehler is fighting for the annulment of the election results. Oehler sees a serious violation in the subsequent opening of sealed packages to clarify the actual number of incorrectly “invalid” ballot papers. His criminal complaint was dropped by the Wiesbaden public prosecutor's office after questioning the election officer Steffen Lauber, because his statements were "credible". The public prosecutor's office can do this in accordance with the Code of Criminal Procedure if, in their opinion, the investigations do not provide sufficient grounds for filing a complaint.

Oehler reacted with incomprehension and complained to the Attorney General's Office. With success. In a letter dated January 12, the public prosecutor's office in Wiesbaden succinctly let Oehler know that "the proceedings have been resumed". Oehler's comprehensive explanation to the Attorney General's Office apparently contributed to this. Oehler unearthed further inconsistencies in the determination of the result after he had come across differences in the result minutes of the election officer. Suddenly, they no longer spoke of 573, but only of 458 invalid votes. In the meantime, 115 invalid votes “suddenly simply disappeared”, Oehler marvels. It's not the only inconsistency and inconsistency that makes him believe the election needs to be repeated.

The Attorney General's Office has another complaint from Oehler in this context. Because the public prosecutor's office in Wiesbaden has stopped the investigation he initiated against CDU party leader Lothar Metternich and against CDU parliamentary group leader Heiko Wettengl for insult, slander and defamation. From Oehler's point of view, it was a matter of significantly influencing the election campaign at the time, which was accompanied by reputational damage. Because a CDU election campaign flyer said that "organized breaches of the law, as Martin Oehler from the OLN wants it", could not be done with the CDU.

In his pleading, Metternich's lawyer referred to the principle of freedom of expression and therefore did not see the limits of criminal law being exceeded.

Oehler, on the other hand, does, which is why he doesn't want to let the matter rest.

The insinuation of the CDU is defamatory and, for him as a self-employed person, threatens his economic existence: "In all seriousness, no one can put this under the protection of freedom of expression," says his brief on the complaint against the termination of the proceedings.

In this case, too, he hopes that the public prosecutor's office will persuade the Wiesbaden public prosecutors to investigate the matter further.