Thanks to the volunteer election workers

More than 1,240 men and women volunteered to help make the local elections in Jena a success on Sunday. "Many thanks for this tour de force by the volunteers, who were on site all day and sometimes well into the night," emphasized Chief Electoral Officer Matthias Bettenhäuser. The work at the 97 polling stations was extremely committed and concentrated.

According to the Chief Electoral Officer, the work done was enormous. In some polling stations, the vote count lasted until well after midnight. The last vote count in the ballot box polling stations was completed at around 1.30 a.m., in the postal polling station at around 4 a.m.. A special transport service was set up to take the election workers home after the count if required.

Great recognition for the work of the young poll workers

The city of Jena is particularly pleased that so many young people volunteered: just under a third of the election workers were under 25 years old, and almost 50 of them were between 16 and 18 years old. "Hats off to the many young and new election workers, who all did a great job despite having little experience," said Bettenhäuser. Almost 90 city administration employees volunteered on election day. A total of around 140 had declared their willingness to help.

As experience has shown that some poll workers are always absent at short notice on election day, those interested in standing by as a reserve can still get in touch(https://service.jena.de/de/wahlhelferin-werden). Even if they are not deployed, they will receive compensation of 20 euros. Anyone who has already declared their willingness but has not yet been deployed, but would like to work on June 9, can send an email to wahlhelfende@jena.de(link sends email).

Throughout Thuringia, more than 20,000 volunteer electoral assistants worked in a total of 3,050 polling stations. Through their commitment, they have made a significant contribution to democracy in Thuringia.