Citizens' initiative Gervinustraße files a lawsuit against district office for invalid signatures for parking zone expansion

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The "Gervinustrasse Citizens' Initiative" in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf is fighting the expansion of the parking zones and has therefore collected signatures to force a referendum. However, the district office found that too little signatures were collected and therefore no referendum can take place. For the first stage, the citizens' request, 7244 signatures are required. The citizens' initiative submitted a total of 11,908 signatures, but the district office only recognized 6637 as valid and rejected 5271 as invalid. The citizens' initiative was surprised by this result and demanded inspection that was granted to them. They then decided to file a lawsuit before the administrative court, as they are checking the signatures by ...
The "Gervinustrasse Citizens' Initiative" in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf is fighting the expansion of the parking zones and has therefore collected signatures to force a referendum. However, the district office found that too little signatures were collected and therefore no referendum can take place. For the first stage, the citizens' request, 7244 signatures are required. The citizens' initiative submitted a total of 11,908 signatures, but the district office only recognized 6637 as valid and rejected 5271 as invalid. The citizens' initiative was surprised by this result and demanded inspection that was granted to them. They then decided to file a lawsuit before the administrative court, as they are checking the signatures by ... (Symbolbild/MB)

The "Gervinustrasse Citizens' Initiative" in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf is fighting the expansion of the parking zones and has therefore collected signatures to force a referendum. However, the district office found that too little signatures were collected and therefore no referendum can take place. For the first stage, the citizens' request, 7244 signatures are required. The citizens' initiative submitted a total of 11,908 signatures, but the district office only recognized 6637 as valid and rejected 5271 as invalid.

The citizens' initiative was surprised by this result and demanded inspection of files that were granted to them. They then decided to file a lawsuit before the administrative court, since they question the examination of the signatures by the district office and deny the invalidity of a total of 1317 signatures.

The six allegations of the citizens' initiative are:
1. EU foreigners were rated as invalid even though they are entitled to vote.
2. People with the main residence in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf were sorted out even though they are registered in the district.
3. Deceased were deleted, although they only died after the signature collection.
4. People with information lock were not recognized in general.
5. Signatures were considered illegible even though they are legible.
6. Signatures were rejected without giving reasons.

The citizens 'initiative suspects that it is a systematically incorrect examination of the signatures and is convinced that the citizens' request would have been successful if properly checked.

The responsible city councilor Arne Herz (CDU) cannot understand the allegations of the citizens' initiative and offered the initiators a conversation. However, this offer was rejected because a lawsuit was filed. Due to the ongoing lawsuit, heart cannot respond to the allegations in detail.

The counting of the signatures in the district office raises many questions. Is it intentional or inability that signatures have been sorted out? As early as 2007, the citizens 'initiative forced a citizens' decision against parking zones, in which 86 percent of the participating citizens voted against the fee -based parking.

Since then, the discomfort has increased measures to restrict road traffic. The large number of supposedly invalid signatures do not fit into the picture. It seems that the district office has no interest in clarifying the case.

Source: Berliner Zeitung, Gunnar Schupelius