ROSTOCK/BERLIN — In a move election officials are calling «the most thorough get-out-the-vote operation in the history of the Federal Republic,» every candidate in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Berlin was ordered on Friday to form a single unbroken human chain stretching from Rostock's town hall to Berlin's Red Town Hall, so that each voter may personally shake the hand of every office-seeker before Sunday's elections.
The chain, organized by the state election directors, requires candidates to stand shoulder-to-shoulder for the entire final weekend. Minister-President Manuela Schwesig was assigned the first position in Rostock, where she reportedly shook 4,200 hands in the first hour. «We calculated that at current walking speed, every eligible voter can complete the full handshake route in just under nine hours,» a state election official said. «We have printed maps. We have set up water stations. It is the least we can do.»
In Berlin, Linke lead candidate Elif Eralp and CDU challenger Stefan Evers were placed at opposite ends of the chain, forcing voters to walk the entire length of the capital twice if they wish to greet both frontrunners. The AfD's Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla were assigned a folding table near Alexanderplatz, where they offered handshakes only to voters who could correctly pronounce «Mecklenburg-Vorpommern» three times without stopping.
By Friday evening, the chain had caused traffic chaos from the Ostsee to the Spree. The Greens' Claudia Müller was seen jogging between her assigned spot and a nearby bakery to keep up morale. «I have shaken so many hands I can no longer feel my own,» she said. «But democracy is a contact sport.»
At press time, the Forschungsgruppe Wahlen had released a new poll showing that 61 percent of voters now planned to vote by waving from a distance.