Dresden district electoral committee declares manipulated ballot papers invalid

The Dresden district electoral committee has declared the more than 100 manipulated ballot papers for the state election invalid. However, this has hardly any effect on the final election result, said Dresden's election officer Markus Blocher after the committee meeting in the New Town Hall. "The distribution of seats does not change." Only the absolute figures were corrected.

A total of 111 conspicuous postal ballot papers had been identified. All eight Dresden constituencies were affected, especially constituency 40 in Langebrück in the north of the state capital. This is where constituencies 36011 (29 ballot papers) and 36012 (56 ballot papers) are located.

After the state election, it became known that postal ballot papers in several Saxon constituencies had been manipulated in favor of the small right-wing extremist party Freie Sachsen. The Dresden public prosecutor's office and the Saxon State Criminal Police Office (LKA) are now investigating.

The district electoral committee checked all postal ballots cast with direct and list votes for the Free Saxony party, and random checks were carried out on those with a vote for the party. According to Blocher, they had expected to find 112 manipulated ballot papers beforehand. In the end, there were 111. "We took another very close look at one of them and couldn't find any stickers or anything else."

Blocher described the fact that the votes are now invalid as regrettable. However, after consulting with legal counsel, a majority of the committee saw no legal basis to declare the votes originally cast valid.