Saxony-Anhalt, turnout at 2pm was 54.4%: the figure that changes since this morning

This morning, when this newspaper reported on the opening of polling stations in Saxony-Anhalt, the only certain fact was the day’s schedule: polls open until 6pm on 6 September 2026 and the first projection from public broadcasters immediately after closing. In the afternoon, the election day’s first figure arrived.

According to the Landeswahlleitung, the Land’s electoral authority, by 2pm 54.4% of eligible voters had cast their ballot. At the same hour in 2021, the share was 27.1%: the comparison is reported by t-online based on the authority’s data.

What a mid-day turnout figure does, and does not, say

A midday figure measures pace, not outcome. It contains no information about the distribution of votes among the lists, and it cannot be cleanly compared with the final turnout, because the flow may be concentrated in different hours than in the previous round. One caveat should be added: the available material does not specify how postal votes are counted in the 2pm reading, and the question is not trivial when comparing two different elections.

The scope of what can be said, therefore, is narrow: at 2pm today the recorded percentage is more than double that of the same hour five years ago. The final official result is expected during the night or the following morning.

The starting picture

Polling stations remain open until 6pm, with the first projection from ARD and ZDF expected immediately after closing. The reference point for the previous round is 2021: the CDU obtained 37.1% of the second votes, the AfD 20.8%.

The AfD’s lead candidate is Ulrich Siegmund, elected in May 2025 with 98.3% of delegates’ votes, according to the documentary reconstruction of the entry dedicated to the vote, which draws on Landtag records and party documents. The party’s regional federation has been classified by the Land’s office for the protection of the constitution as “definitely right-wing extremist” (transl. from German) since 2023: this is an administrative classification by a Land body, not a judicial ruling, and we report it as such.

Why we do not publish forecasts

As this morning, this newspaper does not publish expected figures by list. The available material contains no polls with a polling institute, survey date and sample size: without those three elements, a poll figure is not verifiable and does not go into print. The only information we can give the reader about expectations is that the vote is considered open among several parties, but we do not translate this consideration into percentages.

What we do not know

We do not know what the final turnout will be, nor how the votes will be distributed among the lists. We do not know what the composition of the next Landtag will be: the available material contains no data on the size of the assembly, and for this reason we do not indicate any. Finally, we do not know whether, and by what margin, the 6pm projections will be confirmed by the final count.

The next verifiable milestone is the closing of polling stations at 6pm and the projection from the two public broadcasters; the figure this newspaper will use going forward is the result by list published by the Landeswahlleitung, not the evening projections.