Kleve district - The citizens of Kleve district have been called upon to vote in a referendum. They can vote on whether the district of Kleve should include the Reichwald in the application process of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for another national park. This is the result of the meeting of the district council on Thursday, September 26, 2024.
The majority of the district council voted against a bid in the spring. An initiative then collected enough votes for a citizens' petition - with the aim of changing the political decision and entering the application process after all. As the citizens' petition was successful, the district council now had to revisit the application. However, the district council stuck to its original decision: The national park application process was rejected by a majority: 25 district council members voted "yes" - and therefore in favor of a national park application. 31 members of the district council voted against, with two abstentions.
As the district council of the Kleve district has therefore not complied with the citizens' petition, a referendum must now be held within three months. This is stipulated by law. The referendum will take place exclusively by postal vote. The documents are automatically sent to those entitled to vote by post. The necessary documents are now being created, printed and prepared for dispatch to the individual postal addresses. The voting documents are expected to be sent out in mid-November. It will then be possible to cast your vote until Wednesday, December 11, 2024, at 12 noon. This means that the voting envelope must be received by the Kleve district administrator by this date. Voting letters received at a later date cannot be included in the vote count.
The referendum contains - mutatis mutandis - only the question "Should the district of Kleve participate with the Reichswald in the application process of the state of NRW for another national park?". This question can be answered with "Yes" or "No". The referendum is successful if two conditions are met:
- Among the valid votes, there are more "yes" votes than "no" votes.
- The number of valid "yes" votes must be at least 15 percent of all eligible voters. In past elections, around 265,000 people were eligible to vote. 15 percent of these would therefore be around 39,750 "yes" votes. The exact figure can only be determined on a cut-off date.
The vote count is public. This begins on December 11, 2024 - immediately after the end of the voting period. The result will be determined by the district administrator after the votes have been counted and published.
Further information on the citizens' petition process is available on the Kleve district website:
www.kreis-kleve.de/bürgerentscheid.