Because a woman from NRW wore a headscarf when entering the polling station, she is said to have been turned away. However, the 21-year-old persisted.
NRW – In Bergheim in North Rhine-Westphalia * there was a scandal in the federal election last Sunday (September 26th). At a polling station, a 21-year-old woman was initially not allowed to cast her vote, reports * RUHR24. The reason: the voter wore a headscarf.
| circle | Rhein-Erft district (North Rhine-Westphalia) |
| city | Bergheim |
| resident | 61,749 (31. Dec. 2020) |
—
Bundestag election in North Rhine-Westphalia: woman with a headscarf is initially not allowed to vote
A Video posted on Instagram caused a sensation shortly after the elections, several media reported. An approximately two-minute excerpt should show the situation in the polling station in the city near Cologne on Sunday. To listen to: A woman who apparently discusses with election workers why she is not allowed to vote.
The young woman entered the polling station in the Astrid Lindgren School in Bergheim on Sunday in the Bundestag election * wearing a headscarf and face mask. There she was initially refused to hand over her election documents – because of the ban on veiling. The city of Bergheim admitted this on Tuesday (September 28).
In the video, the person apparently affected asks how this misunderstanding came about and asks for an explanation. She asked the election worker twice about the legal basis and was sent away, the video continues. And: You noticed how other women with headscarves were denied the right to vote in the polling station. However, this information has not yet been confirmed (read more news about the federal election 2021 * at RUHR24).
Scandal in polling station in North Rhine-Westphalia: Voter with headscarf remains persistent
Nevertheless, the young woman from Bergheim persisted. Only after her complaint to the election control was an instruction given to the polling station. After all, she was still able to make use of her right to vote. A bad aftertaste still remains.
“I was not only speechless, I felt pretty helpless,” said the 21-year-old WDR. For fear of being insulted because of her public complaint about the incident, she did not want to give her name (read more news from NRW * at RUHR24).
A woman with a headscarf is denied the right to vote – the city of Bergheim apologizes
As the city of Bergheim explains in a press release, the reason for the rejection of those eligible to vote was a “misjudgment”. “According to her own statement, the election worker assumed an inadmissible concealment, although the handling of possible concealment was expressly discussed during the election worker training courses,” it says. An Islamophobic, racist or discriminatory background could “in no way” be confirmed.
The city also apologized to the woman in writing “for this embarrassing incident” on behalf of the election worker. Mayor Volker Mießeler (CDU) has also already spoken to her on the phone and arranged a personal meeting in the town hall.
Video: Laschet folds ballot incorrectly
“Extraordinary misjudgment” – case from NRW should be completely cleared up
“There is nothing nice to talk about about this extraordinary misjudgment, something like that simply shouldn’t happen,” said Mießeler. It is important to clarify the case completely, so that there are no more questions about “any kind of xenophobic background”.
In this context, the city emphasized that the free exercise of the right to vote is a high democratic legal asset “which must be protected under all circumstances”. So that such an incident does not repeat itself again in upcoming elections, one wants to train the helpers in the polling stations even more intensively. * RUHR24 is part of the editorial network of IPPEN.MEDIA.
Headline list image: © Christian Dittrich / dpa, Joe Klamar / AFP; Collage: RUHR24
–
