Berlin, August 20th, 2026 (The Berlin Spectator) – Have you taken the S-Bahn train recently? Did it take you from A to B? And did it do so on time? If the answer is yes, you are lucky. But, as a matter of fact, those constant S-Bahn issues are only the tip of the iceberg. In this city, things just don’t work.
Have you become a German citizen registered in Berlin? That would mean you can vote. If you’re not in the city on September 20th, the day of the state election, maybe because you will be visiting people back home, you can order an absentee ballot online. In theory. You could have ordered one if the system had worked yesterday, which it didn’t. By now, it seems to be working again, but for how long?
It’s not the first time there were problems with state elections in Berlin. The problem with this latest problem: It is only a fraction of the problems this problematic city has.
If anyone thought the latest absentee ballot registration issue could be linked to the latest hacker attack Berlin became a victim of, they seemed to be mistaken, at first. On Wednesday, the Senate Administration of the Interior issued a statement on the matter: “Based on the information currently available, no connection to the hacking incident reported by the Senate Chancellery is apparent.”
The good news is that they actually managed to publish a statement, in spite of all those issues with the city state’s IT system. But the bad news obviously outweighs the good. Later, the RBB reported there actually was a connection, contrary to the statement. The security software they are forced to run because of the hacking incident slows down the entire system. Hence the absentee ballots couldn’t be ordered online for a while.
By the way: The state-owned company responsible for sending out ballots is responsible for penalty notices as well. Back in April, none could be sent out because of some other problem they experienced. It had nothing to do with the hacker attack since it had not happened yet.
Oh, I almost forgot: The hacker attack is still affecting two Senate Administrations, namely those responsible for housing and transport. Besides, the issue might prevent the authorities from paying out accommodation allowances to more than 50,000 households that badly need it. Of course, the hacker attack itself is an issue nobody is taking lightly, including the departing Governing Mayor Kai Wegner (CDU).
Does Berlin have big problems only or smaller ones too? Oh, there are tons of issues of all sizes. In the Prenzlauer Berg borough, somehow they can’t complete the conversion of Hufelandstrasse to a bicycle street because of missing markers. The renovation of a primary school building a bit further north, in the Weissensee neighborhood, took eight years instead of three. It was just completed. And a multi-billion-Euro program for the renovation of more school buildings has not shown the results that were expected.
So, do things work in Berlin? No.
