In the early afternoon, voter turnout in Saxony-Anhalt was 54.4 percent. This doubled compared to 2021. At that time, 27.1 percent of those eligible to vote cast their vote by 2 p.m. The state returning officer said the database is based on random feedback from the representative election offices. It is said that voter turnout is currently being determined without postal voting. The nationwide voter turnout from all electoral districts (postal and ballot box voting districts) will only be determined from 6 p.m. and will be announced with the provisional results.
In the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt there was a significantly higher turnout at midday. By 12 p.m. on Sunday, 34.72 percent of those eligible to vote had cast their votes, as the state returning officer in Magdeburg announced. At the same time in 2021, in the last state election, it was only 22.4 percent.
The first forecasts are expected when the polling stations close at 6 p.m. The vote in Saxony-Anhalt could have a signaling effect for the elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in two weeks and also for federal politics.
Once again, an AfD office in the Vorpommern-Rügen district has been the target of property damage. According to a police spokesman, a patrol discovered on Sunday morning that the window front of the office in Stralsund had been sprayed.
According to the AfD general secretary of MV and district council member in Western Pomerania-Rügen, Dario Seifert, this is the office of the district council faction. According to a police spokesman, political motivation can be assumed, which is why state security is taking over.
SPD leading candidate Armin Willingmann cast his vote in the Harz region for the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt. “May the sun continue to shine over Saxony-Anhalt for the next few years,” the politician told the German Press Agency after casting his vote. A sole government by the AfD would be “severe damage to the country”.
The CDU's top candidate, Prime Minister Sven Schulze, cast his vote in the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday morning. Schulze voted in his home town of Magdeburg together with his wife Kati. The CDU is fighting to continue to govern in Saxony-Anhalt. In the surveys, however, the AfD, which was classified as right-wing extremist, was ahead.
Farin Urlaub, singer of the band Die Ärzte, criticizes the social youth work of the past decades. In an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Urlaub said when asked what could be done to improve the mood in Germany: “Go back 30 years and do a completely different youth work.”
The 62-year-old added: "I am very seriously of the opinion that we have failed as a society if the AfD can bring out the program that it is currently running with, and a lot of people say: Yes, exactly! That's what I want to vote for."
This cannot be solely the fault of these voters, Urlaub continued. “It’s all of our fault too.” He couldn't put his finger on the exact point. "But at least as far as the upcoming state elections are concerned, one factor is certainly the hostile takeover of the GDR by the FRG. We never acknowledged that things were done differently in the GDR, but at least some were valid in their own way."
The AfD's top candidate, Ulrich Siegmund, cast his vote in the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt on Sunday morning. The 35-year-old and his wife Julia drove up to a polling station in his hometown of Tangermünde on a Simson.
Shortly before AfD top candidate Ulrich Siegmund cast his vote in Tangermünde, there was an emergency medical intervention in front of the polling station. “A male person had to be resuscitated,” said a police spokeswoman. It is still unclear whether the man survived. The “Mitteldeutsche Zeitung” and the “Magdeburger Volksstimme” had previously reported.
It was said that an ambulance and an emergency doctor were on duty in front of the polling station at the Tangermünde special school around 9:30 a.m. The police have set up a privacy screen. The police spokeswoman said it was also unclear whether the man had come to the special school to vote. Siegmund lives with his family in Tangermünde near Stendal in the north of Saxony-Anhalt.
On the day of the state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, the Catholic Magdeburg Bishop Gerhard Feige once again called for action against extremism and an “increasing neglect of human coexistence”. “At the moment this means in a special way resisting the nationalist and xenophobic evil spirit,” said Feige, according to the speech manuscript, on Sunday during the Magdeburg diocese’s pilgrimage to the Huysburg monastery near Dingelstedt. He thanked everyone who stood up for human dignity, charity, solidarity, dialogue and tolerant and cosmopolitan coexistence. At the same time, he criticized: "What apocalyptic and racist ideas have become established in the minds of many! Charity is becoming a nonsense - and misanthropy is becoming socially acceptable."
