![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/dpa_international_526\/811fac0b4c36a7686d128a6bc9d03067.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\nCalls by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of key state elections next month to abolish postal voting triggered backlash on Monday, with a senior government figure stressing that there was “no need for change.”<\/p>\n
AfD co-leader Tino Chrupalla caused a stir on Sunday when he claimed that it was “undisputed” that the postal voting system was sometimes abused in nursing homes.<\/p>\n
Chrupalla, in an interview with public broadcaster ARD, said he had been told by carers and relatives of cases “where the pen was, so to speak, guided.”<\/p>\n
His comments came two weeks before crucial state elections in Saxony-Anhalt, where the anti-immigrant AfD is far ahead in the polls and hoping to cling its first-ever state government.<\/p>\n
Chrupalla said that it was clear in the eyes of the AfD that “that postal voting, which was introduced as an exceptional measure, should be abolished again.”<\/p>\n
Thorsten Frei, a leading figure of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU), swiftly rejected the call, saying that there were “good reasons” to give citizens the option to vote by postal ballot.<\/p>\n
Germany’s electoral system, including postal voting, “enables the greatest possible participation for all those who wish to take part in elections. And that is why I see no need for change in this regard,” he said.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
FILE PHOTO – Thorsten Frei, chairman of the CDU\/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, arrives at the meeting of the CDU Executive Committee at the Union’s federal headquarters, the Konrad-Adenauer-Haus. (is associated with: \u00abCall by Germany’s AfD to abolish postal voting causes backlash\u00bb) Michael Kappeler\/dpa<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calls by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) ahead of key state elections next month to abolish postal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78053,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[57233,452,57231,393,5,57230,50366,45243,455,57232],"class_list":["post-78052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-absentee-ballot","tag-afd","tag-backlash","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-postal-voting","tag-state-elections","tag-thorsten-frei","tag-tino-chrupalla","tag-voting-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78052"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78052\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78052"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78052"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}