Press release no. 18/17 of 7. September 2017
Active contribution: roughly 650,000 voluntary workers assist in the 2017 Bundestag Election
WIESBADEN – On 24 September 2017, about 650,000 poll workers will contribute on an honorary basis in some 88,000 electoral boards to the success of the election to the 19th German Bundestag. They are the basis of the election being organised by the people and thus the most important pillar of the electoral procedure. The Federal Returning Officer asks all citizens to be available for this particularly important voluntary activity and also expresses his sincere thanks to all those who are going to work as volunteers in the electoral boards on 24 September 2017, thus doing a great service to our democracy and, consequently, to all of us.
At the forthcoming Bundestag election there will be approximately 73,500 polling districts for ballot box voting and about 14,500 districts for postal voting. The boundaries of the polling districts have been drawn by the municipalities so as to make it as easy as possible for voters to get to the polling stations. At each polling station and for each postal voting district there will be an electoral board consisting of an electoral officer, his or her deputy and three to seven board members. Some large cities require up to 10,000 poll workers to conduct the Bundestag election.
The electoral board organises and supervises the proper conduct of the election and, where necessary, explains the election regulations to the citizens. After the polling station has been closed, the board counts the votes and reports the result to the municipal authority which then submits it to the constituency returning officer and staff. They determine the provisional election result for the constituency from the first releases and report their result to the Land returning officer. The Land returning officer and staff, in turn, instantly report the incoming constituency results to the Federal Returning Officer, who establishes the provisional result for all of Germany from these figures.
What poll workers have to do is illustrated in three videos (in German) on the website of the Federal Returning Officer. They deal with the electoral board, the procedures on election day, the counting of the votes and the documentation work.
For further Information:
Office of the Federal Returning Officer
tel: +49 611 75-4863
www.bundeswahlleiter.de/contact