As voting hours were extended at some polling stations for the Seoul mayoral race in the June 3 local elections due to a shortage of ballots, a case in Berlin, Germany—where the election itself was ruled "invalid" in the past for poor administration—is drawing attention. Berlin held a rerun two years later, and the mayor and the number of party seats ultimately changed.
On Sept. 26, 2021, Berlin held the federal parliamentary election to choose a successor linked to then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, the Berlin state parliament election, district elections in Berlin, and a referendum on whether to nationalize large real estate corporations, all at the same time.
However, due to the Berlin state election commission's lax preparations, simultaneous problems erupted right after voting began. The commission misjudged how long it would take one person to vote and installed far too few voting booths. As a result, voters had to stand in line outside polling stations for hours. There were also cases in which ballots for other constituencies were mistakenly delivered to some polling stations.
A ballot shortage also occurred, as in this Seoul mayoral election. With fewer ballots prepared than the number of voters, ballots ran out in many places and voting was halted. Voting was suspended for hours and later resumed, and ultimately continued past the legal closing time of 6 p.m. A considerable number of citizens cast their ballots after seeing the broadcasters release exit poll results at exactly 6 p.m.
After the election, numerous lawsuits were filed along with criticism that it was something that "could not happen in a democratic country." In Nov. 2022, the Berlin state Constitutional Court ruled that all results of the city and district council elections were invalid. The Berlin state court said, "Not just a few, but thousands of voters either could not vote, could not cast a valid vote, voted under unfair conditions, or could not vote free from external influence," adding that it violated "the principles of freedom, universality, and equality of elections as stipulated in the Berlin state constitution."
The Berlin state court said, "It is impossible to determine how many voters, judging that voting would be impossible due to the long queues and the suspension (of polling station operations), simply went home." Of the roughly 1.84 million ballots cast, an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 had issues. However, the Berlin court said, "In some constituencies, even if around 100 votes had been counted differently, it would have been enough to change the seat allocation." The Federal Constitutional Court also invalidated the federal election results in 455 of Berlin's 2,256 constituencies and ordered reruns.
Accordingly, a rerun was held on Feb. 12, 2023, in which the ruling Social Democratic Party suffered a crushing defeat and the opposition Christian Democratic Union won a landslide. The mayor also changed from the Social Democratic Party to a Christian Democratic Union figure. In the following year's federal parliamentary reruns held in some constituencies, the seat counts of four parties shifted significantly.