Announcement for the 2025 federal election

Election announcement

1 The election to the 21st German Bundestag will take place on 23 February 2025. The election will last from 08:00 to 18:00.


2 The city of Chemnitz forms the constituency 161 Chemnitz for the election to the Bundestag and is divided into 129 general constituencies.

The electoral notifications sent to eligible voters in the period from 13 January 2025 to 2 February 2025 specify the polling district and the polling station in which the eligible voter has to vote.

If the polling station is accessible, the corresponding symbol for accessibility is located next to the polling station on the polling card (see also Table 1). Otherwise, you will find the crossed-out symbol here.

Table 1: Accessible polling stations

Overview of the accessible polling stations in the city of Chemnitz

The postal ballot boards will meet on 23 February 2025 at 3:00 p.m. to check the admission of postal ballot letters and at 6:00 p.m. to determine and establish the result of the postal ballot in the

• Vocational School Centre for Technology II - Craftsmen's School, Schloßstraße 3, 09111 Chemnitz

  and at the

• secondary school "Am Hartmannplatz", Hartmannstraße 21, 09113 Chemnitz

together.

3 Every person entitled to vote - unless they have a polling card - may only vote in the polling station of the electoral district in whose electoral roll they are entered.

Voters must bring their polling card and their identity card or passport with them to the election.

The polling card should be handed in at the election.

Voting takes place using official ballot papers. The ballot papers are kept ready in the polling station. Each voter receives a ballot paper upon entering the polling station.

Each voter has a first vote and a second vote.

The ballot paper contains the following consecutive numbers

• for the election in the constituency, in black print, the names of the candidates of the authorised district election nominations, stating the party, if it uses an abbreviation, also this, in the case of other district election nominations also the password and to the right of the name of each candidate a circle for identification,

• for the election by Land lists, in blue print, the name of the parties, if they use an abbreviation, including this abbreviation, and the names of the first five candidates of the authorised Land lists and a circle to the left of the party name for identification.

The voter casts

• their first vote in such a way
  
  by placing a cross in a circle on the left-hand side of the ballot paper (black print) or in some other way clearly indicating which candidate it is for,

• and his second vote in such a way
  
  by clearly indicating on the right-hand part of the ballot paper (blue print) by means of a cross in a circle or in some other way which Land list it is to apply to.

The ballot paper must be marked by the voter in a polling booth in the polling station and folded in such a way that the voter's vote cannot be recognised. No photographs or films may be taken in the polling booth.

Representative electoral statistics will be conducted in the general polling districts 1201, 8204, 8603, 9403 and 9701 as well as the postal voting district B63A. Specially labelled ballot papers are used for this purpose, on which the gender and age group are coded using a code letter.

This procedure is governed by the Act on General and Representative Electoral Statistics for Elections to the German Bundestag and Elections of Members of the European Parliament from the Federal Republic of Germany (Electoral Statistics Act - WStatG) of 21 May 1999 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 1023), last amended by Article 1a of the Act of 27 April 2013 (Federal Law Gazette I p. 962).

Representative electoral statistics form the basis for an electoral policy and sociological analysis of the election results and provide a specific picture of the expression of political will.

A violation of the secrecy of the ballot is ruled out in that

• the selected ballot box/postal ballot districts must comprise at least 400 eligible voters.
• the birth cohorts are combined into such large groups that no conclusions can be drawn about voting behaviour.
• the electoral rolls and the labelled ballot papers may not be merged.
• the ballot papers are initially counted at the polling station without statistical analysis. This is subsequently carried out under the protection of statistical secrecy without using the electoral roll at the Statistical Office of the Free State of Saxony.
• electoral statistical surveys may only be carried out by municipalities in which a separation of the statistical office from other municipal administrative offices is ensured by state law and statistical confidentiality is guaranteed by organisation and procedure.
• the results of the representative electoral statistics are only published for the Free State of Saxony and not for individual electoral districts.

To record voter turnout, 10 birth year groups were defined separately according to gender:

Voting behaviour is registered separately by gender for 6 birth year groups:

4. the election procedure as well as the determination and ascertainment of the election result in the electoral district following the election procedure are public. Everyone has access to the extent that this is possible without interfering with the election business.


5. voters who have a polling card may participate in the election in constituency 161 Chemnitz by casting their vote in any constituency of the electoral district or by postal vote.


Anyone wishing to vote by postal ballot must obtain an official ballot paper, an official ballot paper envelope and an official ballot paper envelope from the electoral authority of the City of Chemnitz - postal voting office - and send their ballot letter with the ballot paper (in the sealed ballot paper envelope) and the signed ballot paper to the office indicated on the ballot paper envelope in good time so that it arrives there by 6 p.m. on election day at the latest. The ballot letter can also be handed in at the office indicated.


6 Each person entitled to vote may only exercise their right to vote once and only in person. The right to vote may not be exercised by a proxy instead of the person entitled to vote (Section 14 (4) of the Federal Elections Act).

A person entitled to vote who is unable to read or is prevented from casting their vote due to a disability may use the assistance of another person to do so. The assistance is limited to technical assistance in expressing a voting decision made and expressed by the person entitled to vote. Assistance is not permitted if it is provided under improper influence, if it replaces or alters the voter's self-determined decision-making or decision or if there is a conflict of interest on the part of the assisting person (Section 14 (5) of the Federal Elections Act).

Anyone who votes without authorisation or otherwise brings about an incorrect result of an election or falsifies the result is liable to a custodial sentence of up to five years or a monetary penalty. Unauthorised voting also includes anyone who casts a vote contrary to the decision of the person entitled to vote or without an expressed decision of the person entitled to vote within the scope of permissible assistance. The attempt is punishable (Section 107a (1) and (3) of the Criminal Code).


Chemnitz, 6 February 2025

Ralph Burghart
Mayor