Before a pivotal election that could potentially result in a state government ruled exclusively by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt, a case of potential postal vote fraud is raising concerns.
A 74-year-old nephew of a 95-year-old resident with severe dementia has filed a criminal complaint after discovering that postal voting documents were requested and a ballot cast in her name at a Dessau retirement home – despite staff first telling him the papers had been destroyed. The case is now being reported in Welt, one of Germany’s largest newspapers.
The case involves the Marthahaus senior residence and centers on whether postal votes from residents who cannot meaningfully participate are being handled properly. The nephew, who acts as his aunt’s legal representative, said he routinely receives every letter and document sent to her, including advertising. When the postal voting materials for the Saxony-Anhalt state election never arrived, he asked the home’s director where these documents were located.
Last Thursday, the director directed him to a female staff member who was not on duty until the next day. On Friday, that employee stated she had collected the election documents sent to residents “and shredded” them, without consulting relatives or authorized representatives.
That account did not hold up. When the nephew inquired at the municipal election office, officials confirmed that postal voting documents had been requested on Aug. 10 using his aunt’s date of birth and that a vote had already been recorded. Staff showed him the application bearing his aunt’s “scribbled” signature. Data-protection rules prevented them from disclosing which party was marked.
The nephew described the home’s alleged actions as a “scandal.” He and his wife first noticed problems during the February 2025 federal election; during the current state-election campaign they again encountered “inconsistencies” and this time pursued them. The complaint against persons unknown has been obtained by reporters.
The Marthahaus did not answer written questions from the Ostdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and declined to comment when reached by telephone. City officials confirmed they were aware of the incident but provided no further details.
A second, still-unreported case has surfaced in Naumburg, according to German newspaper Junge Freiheit. A woman there said she “did not see any election documents for my mother.”
Her mother is “unable to give her own name.” She asked: “Who will vote for her and according to what criteria?”
The allegations come days before voters in Saxony-Anhalt go to the polls and add to the existing debate over how postal ballots are processed in care facilities, where many residents have limited capacity to express a political preference independently. Investigations will determine whether the documented vote was cast with proper authorization or constituted an unauthorized exercise of another person’s vote.
AfD would ban postal voting
One of the parties most opposed to postal voting is the AfD, which has argued that it is prone to fraud, especially in retirement homes. AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla has previously called for an end to mail-in ballots. He discussed his concerns about this form of voting during a conference with top AfD officials in 2024.
“It is also the task of the opposition to always doubt what a government is doing or what happened in an election. That is also a legitimate right and that is a good thing. And I just really want to point out, and we will also question this, for example, the entire security for the legal storage of ballot boxes, some of which are not stored in a legally secure manner, where in some cases only one person or two have access to these ballot boxes,” he said.
🇩🇪 JUST IN: "I would ban postal voting."
Germany's AfD party is calling for an end to mass mail-in ballots for elections.
Party co-leader @Tino_Chrupalla points out suspicious activity in the elections in Saxony and Thuringia in this new @RMXnews video. pic.twitter.com/tKydzaqaVj
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) September 4, 2024He went on to say that postal voting has been a concern in other elections and that these issues keep coming up. However, he also pointed to a problem plaguing other countries like the United States, which instituted mass mail-in ballots in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, which has involved activists entering retirement homes and potentially manipulating vulnerable elderly voters.
In the case of Germany, Chrupalla stated, “We have also seen this in old and other election campaigns, such as the current campaigning in retirement and nursing homes, especially when the CDU and SPD campaign in these old people’s homes, which are run by Diakonie or Caritas, or go in and out there, and the AfD does not even get access to present their programs to the elderly. These are also things of influence that are not democratic in my opinion.”
Notably, both Diakonie and Caritas are run by the Protestant and Catholic churches, both of which have come out against the AfD, including expelling members of the party from the Church and calling for Germans to vote against them.
Chrupalla is calling for an end to postal voting, saying: “Personally, I would ban postal voting again. It has only been introduced as an exception or initiated in the Federal Republic of Germany. It is not the rule, it should not become the rule and it is not regulated by law in such a way that it is made the rule.”
