Enlarge image

Ballot paper for the repeat election in Berlin: Are you one of the “lucky ones” if you get to vote again?

Photo: snapshot-photography / T.Seeliger / Seeliger / IMAGO

The dilemma began on January 10th. There was an official letter in my mailbox from the Berlin district of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf: “Election notification for the repeat election for the 20th German Bundestag on February 11th, 2024 (main election on September 26th, 2021)”. The name was right, the address was right, even the floor was right.

So I can vote on Sunday. I, who have only been living in Berlin again since November 1st, 2023. I, who already cast a valid vote in the federal election in Hamburg in September 2021.

None of this seemed right to me. As a fourth-generation Berliner, I'm used to a lot of dysfunction, but voting twice for the Bundestag - where does that happen? If so, then in this city, I thought. And I briefly had the eerie feeling that Boris Palmer might have been right when he attacked my homeland a few years ago: "When I get there, I always think: Be careful, you're leaving the functioning part of Germany."

A call to the repeat election hotline set up by the Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf electoral office. I explained my case to the extremely friendly employee, whereupon he assured me that everything was correct: “You are one of the lucky ones who can vote twice. The deadline was December 31st. last year, you moved to a voting district practically a month earlier. Everything’s okay so far.”

This ensured that I could actually take part in the repeat election completely legally. I am not threatened with a fine like the one that "Zeit" editor-in-chief Giovanni di Lorenzo had to pay in 2014 when he voted twice for the European Parliament because of his dual citizenship.

But I still didn't feel like one of the "lucky ones." My feeling told me that I wasn't entitled to vote twice. The simplest solution was obvious: not to vote. But that collided with my belief that as a citizen in a democracy I have many rights, but also a few responsibilities - and voting is one of them.

When I described my feelings to a colleague, he joked that I should find out who my previous tenant voted for in 2021 and then vote the same way. The colleague thought it was a joke, I thought it was a brilliant idea, at least at first. But when I wanted to call my landlord to ask him if he could get in touch with my previous tenant, a thought occurred to me: What if my previous tenant was one of the 4.8 percent in the district who voted for the AfD at the time? Right-wing extremists vote for the sake of continuity? No, that wouldn't work for me at all.

Ring the neighbors' doorbell and ask how they voted? Extremely behaviorally disturbing

If not the previous tenant, then perhaps the neighbors? That was my next idea. I could ring their doorbell and ask them about their voting habits. I could orient myself based on the mood and choose in the spirit of the house community.

But then I asked myself how I would feel if a stranger rang my doorbell to conduct a personal opinion poll to find out what I voted for in the last federal election. Extremely behavioral, to say the least. That would have taken care of the fact that someone would have accepted a package for me while I was away.

Finally, I had a kind of personal, democratic aha moment: I can't outsource my voting decision. Fortunately, I still have enough time before Sunday to study election manifestos, read articles and make a decision based on this.

Maybe this time I'll even be out of the polling station quicker than three years ago than in Hamburg 2021. At that time, I sat thoughtfully in the voting booth for a few minutes due to poor preparation, and a poll worker was already very worried. So if there are delays in the election again in Berlin on Sunday: it's not my fault.