Voters in hundreds of Berlin constituencies were heading to the polls on Sunday for a partial re-run of the 2021 federal election, after numerous mishaps the first time round.
In December, Germany's Constitutional Court ordered a repeat after the botched elections in the city-state on September 26, 2021, including ballot papers being incorrect or going missing altogether.
Queues formed outside polling stations beyond the supposed close of voting when projected results had already been announced.
So on Sunday, 549,549 Berliners may cast their ballots in 455 of the city's 2,256 constituencies and associated postal voting districts, or around a fifth of the overall number.
The vote will not alter the majority of Chancellor Olaf Scholz's centre-left governing coalition as it affects only 0.9% of voters nationwide.
However, the capital's voters could make minor changes in the make-up of the Bundestag, as the German parliament is known. Berlin currently has 29 of the 736 lawmakers in the national parliament and some lawmakers are at risk of losing their seats while others might be returned for the first time.
At a broader level, the vote is seen as marking the start of a key election year in Germany, with European elections scheduled for June 9, then state elections in Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg in September.
However, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) will probably not prosper in the re-run. The AfD has seen support surge in opinion polls in eastern states such as Saxony, but does not have the same widespread appeal in Berlin.
