The voting machines were said not to be compatible with the “Guidelines for the
Construction of Voting Machines” (Annex 1 to § 2 of the Federal Voting Machine Ordinance). They neither complied with the general state-of-the-art, nor were they constructed in compliance with the rules of technology for systems with grievous consequences in case of misconduct (letter B no. 2.1subsection 1 of the Guidelines for the
Construction of Voting Machines). In contravention of to letter B no. 1 item 2 of the
Guidelines for the Construction of Voting Machines, the software used was said not to
be clearly identifiable.
41
It is also said to be objectionable that § 35 of the Federal Electoral Act only calls for
the ballot to be held in secret, but not for adherence to the other electoral principles.
The examinability of the election result provided for in Article 41 of the Basic Law was
said to be undermined if as a result of the type it were no longer to be possible to establish whether the outcome of the election had been reached lawfully.
42
bb) The complainant re 2. also submitted an objection to the elections to the 16th
German Bundestag.
43
He takes the view that the deployment of the computer-controlled voting machines
in at least 1,921 polling districts and 39 constituencies in five Länder had violated the
principle of democracy, the principle of the rule of law and the principles of the public
and official nature of elections. The deployment of the voting machines was said to violate the Federal Electoral Act and the Federal Voting Machine Ordinance from multiple points of view. Neither § 35 of the Federal Electoral Act, nor the Federal Voting
Machine Ordinance, were said to comply with the constitutional principles of the law
on elections of the public and official nature of elections.
44
The complainant re 2. moved inter alia for a finding that the election results in the
constituencies designated by the complainant re 1., in the constituencies that were
manifest from a “Customer overview [of Nedap] on the 2005 Bundestag election” provided by the Federal Statistical Office and in all other constituencies in which voting
machines of the impugned nature might have been deployed, had come about unlawfully and were hence allegedly invalid. It was said that the elections needed to be repeated in these constituencies. Furthermore, the complainant re 2. applied for the
publication of the examination documents of the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt regarding the voting machines to which the complaint referred, as well as for
the holding of an oral hearing as soon as possible and the summons of specific witnesses and experts.
45
The more detailed statements of the complainant re 2. correspond to the objection
submitted by the complainant re 1.
46
cc) The Federal Ministry of the Interior moved to reject the objections.
The public nature of the ballot was said to have been guaranteed in the deployment
of the voting machines. The public was said to be able to check that only entitled voters were granted access to the voting booth. The returning committee was able to
11/37
47
48