On this occasion: Voting by post in Germany - how prone to error is postal voting?

from Daniel Hellmann

DOI: 10.36206/BP2020.02

The 2020 US presidential election has been overshadowed by accusations from the 45th President of the United States that the Democrats stole his victory by postal vote. This development, which is detrimental to the democratic process, should serve as an opportunity to ask how secure postal voting is in Germany? Can we expect electoral fraud and errors in postal voting in the coming super election year?

The most important facts in brief:

1. The proportion of postal votes has steadily increased in Germany and is also expected to rise in the next Bundestag elections.
2. Electoral fraud and electoral errors can be recorded via electoral objections.
3. Errors do occur time and again in the course of postal voting, but the susceptibility to errors does not increase with the number of postal voters.
4. More postal voters also means more costs for packaging and sending the documents. However, the Bundestag election item in the federal budget is very small, so cost increases are unproblematic.
5. There is room for improvement: Better agreements with external service providers,
   more staff for the municipalities and centralised material procurement.
   The new system could make postal voting even more secure in future. Furthermore
   also via the direct mailing of postal voting documents with the election notice
   and the development of an infrastructure for secure e-voting procedures.