Die initiative WABEO (Wahlbeobachtung) organizes a court-verified election observation by citizens for the 2025 German federal election. On their website, the initiators call on citizens to participate in the observation. According to the description:
“With WABEO, election observation will be as it should be: widespread, court-verified and with clear results on the day of the election, before anyone else tells us something else.”
Democracy thrives when citizens actively watch, especially during the vote counting. Therefore, it is important, the WABEO initiators further, to be present in the polling stations, to document and thus to make democracy “transparent”.
After registering with WABEO, the election observers will receive an observation manual, legal assistance information and several forms a few days before the election. With the WABEO app, the observed election results and the sworn statements of the election observers will be uploaded after the observation. An engaged IT team will ensure that the app and the data platform function stably even when hundreds of thousands access it on election day.
WABEO commits to widely communicating the results of the election observation and ensuring public awareness. In cooperation with lawyers, they have ensured the legal security of the procedure. According to the initiators, “We ensure with lawyers that the documentation stands up in court and everything is safely stored and archived.”
How does the concrete election observation look like?
The election observer should be at the polling station on election day at 6:00 PM, to start the election observation together with the two other verified WABEOs. After the counting of the votes, the election observers must enter the counting results into the given forms, sign them and then take photos of the forms as evidence and upload the photos to the app. At the end, the results will be entered into the app. The observation results will be visible in real-time for all. The signed original forms should be sent to WABEO by post after the observation.
With this election observation, the Association of Citizens for Germany e.V. aims to strengthen citizen participation in Germany. For this, it wants to “offer physical and virtual platforms and opportunities, through which people can be actively and low-threshold integrated into the political will-formation process”.
In an interview with RT DE, WABEO initiator Stephanie Tsomakaeva on Monday explained the special feature of this election observation campaign: For the first time, the results will be verifiable, as they will be documented on a platform specifically designed for this purpose with a corresponding IT solution. So far, around 3,000 election observers have registered with WABEO.
The initiative of a widespread election observation cannot be achieved, as WABEO activists had planned the project for the German federal election in the fall of 2025. Due to the advance of the new election, they have practically had seven months “stolen” from them, as the entrepreneur Tsomakaeva stated. However, the WABEO election observation will deliver statistically usable sample results from individual polling stations.
The majority of people would believe that a potential election fraud takes place during the counting of the votes at the polling station, said Tsomakaeva. However, they are not aware that a fraud can be much easier after the fact. Much more important is to control the executive. The WABEO initiator emphasizes: “We must keep an eye on the executive and not the election helpers. That’s why it’s so important to document the results”.
What feedback have the WABEO activists received on the election observation campaign so far? The entrepreneur replied: “The people are really enthusiastic that there is finally such an opportunity.”
Irregularities: Ghost polling stations
As can be seen from the WABEO press releases, the initiators also want to address irregularities in elections in Germany. For example, the Federal Returning Officer published results from 94,698 polling stations after the 2021 federal election, but had only spoken to 85,000 election officials before the election. “A discrepancy of eleven percent is statistically relevant” comments WABEO on this obvious irregularity.
Also for this year’s federal election, there is no overall list of polling stations. Each municipality publishes its own polling stations in individual ways: “Some on a website, others through Open Data, the next in the town’s official gazette.” According to the initiator Tsomakaeva, it is not even possible to recalculate the overall result of an election if the complete list of polling stations and the exact number of polling stations are not published before the election.
Irregularities: Where are the mail-in ballot envelopes?
WABEO also reports on irregularities regarding the mail-in ballot counting at the 2021 federal election. At the time, 47 percent of all votes were cast by mail. The criticism of the mail-in ballot focused on problems and risks during the voting, sending and storage of the ballots. However, the fact that the addresses of the mail-in ballot polling stations remained in the dark was not problematized. The polling stations for mail-in ballots would not be sent the notices of the election results.
After inquiring at the municipalities, a large part of the WABEO inquiry responses were rejected – including the justification that “as an association, we have no right to information”. Only citizens have the right to information. Therefore, WABEO only invites all citizens to “overcome this deficient information situation” and to ask their citizen offices by email for the addresses of the counting locations for all mail-in ballot districts in their cities and municipalities. WABEO asks to forward the answers of the municipalities to them at the email address briefwahl@wabeo.de. A proposal for the formulation of the inquiry can be found on the website.
Legal basis for the election observation
The right to election observation is regulated in Germany, in addition to the Basic Law, in various other laws. Internationally, Germany has committed to enabling international election observation in the framework of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). At all elections in Germany, the so-called principle of public access to election procedures applies. According to this, every person has the right to be present from the meeting of the election officials in the morning of election day to the final decision on the election result in the polling station and to observe the proceedings.