Germany Voter Registration for Germans Living Abroad (Antrag auf Eintragung in das Wählerverzeichnis für im Ausland lebende Deutsche)

This file is the source-review record for this document version, per the manual-source-review-v1 practice. It documents the provenance of the published fields and flow and states the current verification claim honestly.

Current claim

• status: draft
• verification.method: manual-source-review-v1
• verification.lastVerifiedAt: 2026-07-04

The document was derived directly from the fillable Anlage 2 PDF form (bwo_anlage-2_ausfuellbar.pdf, published on bundeswahlleiterin.de), fetched over plain HTTPS with no bot-block encountered, using pdfjs-dist's getFieldObjects() API to recover the PDF's own AcroForm field names, types, and checkbox/radio export values, cross-checked against the PDF's own rendered text layer (form page 1, plus the Merkblatt/explanatory notes on pages 3-4). Status remains draft, not verified.

Sources examined

• Document (id, version): de/bundeswahlleiterin/voter-registration-abroad / 1.0.0
• Spec version: GovSchema 0.3.0
• Authority: the Gemeindebehörde (municipal authority) of the applicant's last registered German address processes and decides the application; the form itself, and the underlying Bundeswahlordnung (Federal Elections Regulation) it implements, are published nationally by the Bundeswahlleiterin (Federal Returning Officer) under the Bundeswahlgesetz (Federal Elections Act).
• Primary source: https://www.bundeswahlleiterin.de/dam/jcr/dc589523-d709-4c43-adbc-9342dda468ad/bwo_anlage-2_ausfuellbar.pdf — "Anlage 2 (zu § 18 Absatz 4) Antrag auf Eintragung in das Wählerverzeichnis und Wahlscheinantrag für im Ausland lebende Deutsche (§ 12 Abs. 2 S. 1 Nr. 1 des Bundeswahlgesetzes)". Retrieved directly, HTTP 200, 4 pages (form page 1, official-use-only reverse-side page 2, Merkblatt explanatory notes pages 3-4).
• Sibling source examined for scope (not used for field content): https://www.bundeswahlleiterin.de/dam/jcr/47a30ab4-2cf1-46f7-9958-443be9dd2446/bwo_anlage-1_ausfuellbar.pdf ("Anlage 1 (zu § 18 Absatz 6) ... für Rückkehrer aus dem Ausland") — confirmed this is a different process (a returnee re-entering Germany and registering a new domestic address between the 42nd and 21st day before an election), not modelled by this document; see "Explicitly out of scope" below.
• Secondary sources (fetched directly, HTTP 200, used for scoping/context only):
  • https://www.bundeswahlleiterin.de/en/bundestagswahlen/2025/informationen-waehler/deutsche-im-ausland.html — the Bundeswahlleiterin's own English-language "Germans abroad" guidance, confirming the 25-year/3-month eligibility rule, the 21-days-before-election filing deadline, and that Anlage 2 (this document) is the standard-case form while Anlage 2a covers applicants relying on the narrower "political familiarity" clause instead.
  • https://www.bundestag.de/parlament/bundestagswahl/auslandsdeutsche-213246 — Bundestag's own explainer, corroborating the same eligibility and submission-channel rules (personally and handwritten signed; may be transmitted by post, fax, email, or other documentable electronic means).
• Retrieved / reviewed: 2026-07-04.
• Reviewer: GovSchema Engineering (Standards Engineer — initial authoring source review).

What was directly observed vs. inferred

| Field(s) | Basis | |---|---| | lastName, birthName, givenNames, lastNameAtGermanRegistration, formerLastNameAtGermanRegistration, dateOfBirth, email | Directly observed — the PDF's own AcroForm field names (Familienname, Geburtsname, Vornamen, radio FamiliennameBRD with export values unverändert/verändert, FamiliennameDamalsBRD, Geburtsdatum, EMail) and adjacent rendered labels, read via pdfjs-dist getFieldObjects() plus the text layer. | | currentAddressAbroad | Directly observed — PDF fields DerzeitigeWohnungZeile1/DerzeitigeWohnungZeile2 under the label "Meine derzeitige Wohnung (vollständige Wohnanschrift im Ausland)"; modelled as one multi-line free-text field per this registry's existing address-block convention (e.g. nl/denhaag/voter-registration-abroad's residentialAddress). | | lastGermanAddressFrom/To/lastGermanAddress, priorGermanAddressFrom/To/priorGermanAddress | Directly observed — PDF fields GemeldetBRDVomZeile1/GemeldetBRDBisZeile1/GemeldetBRDAnschriftZeile1 (row 1) and GemeldetBRDVomZeile2/GemeldetBRDBisZeile2/GemeldetBRDAnschriftZeile2 (row 2), corroborated by the Merkblatt's own explanation (Randnummer 4) that a second address row is completed only when the qualifying three-month period spans more than one registered German address. | | dateOfDeparture, countryMovedTo | Directly observed — PDF fields DatumAbmeldung, FortzugStaat under "und bin fortgezogen am (Datum der Abmeldung) nach (Ort, Staat)". | | identityDocumentType, identityDocumentNumber, identityDocumentIssueDate, identityDocumentIssuingAuthority | Directly observed — PDF radio BesitzPassart (export values Personalausweis/Reisepass) and fields Ausweisnummer, DatumPassAusstellung, AusstellendeBehoerde. | | priorGermanResidenceDeclaration, germanNationalityDeclaration, notExcludedFromVotingRights, noOtherApplicationFiled | Directly observed — PDF checkboxes WahlrechtsvoraussetzungAusland, DeutscherGG, Wahlrechtsausschluss, NurEinAntrag, each with export value Ja and adjacent declaration text under the form's own "Ich versichere gegenüber der Gemeindebehörde:" heading. Modelled as required: true + fieldRole: eligibility (no eligibleValues), the same lighter pattern this registry already uses for ie/electoral-commission/voter-registration's declarationTruthfulComplete — the field's required: true already carries the "must be affirmed" constraint, so a separate eligibleValues: [true] would be redundant (unlike a field that can take several values where only some continue the pathway). | | votingAgeStatus | Directly observed — PDF radio AlterWahlberechtigung, export values bereits vollendet (already turned 18) / zum Wahltag vollendet (will turn 18 by election day); both keep the applicant eligible, so modelled as a plain required enum, not an eligibility-role field. | | ballotDeliveryAddressChoice, ballotDeliveryAddress | Directly observed — PDF radio VersandAnschrift (export values derzeitige Anschrift/abweichende Anschrift) and fields VersandAnschriftZeile1/VersandAnschriftZeile2. The requiredWhen: { field: ballotDeliveryAddressChoice, equals: "different_address" } condition is safe against this registry's known absent-field misfire class (GOV-763, GOV-1045) because it compares an always-submitted enum radio field with equals against one of its own two possible values, not notEquals/equals: false against a field that may simply be absent. | | declarationDate | Directly observed — PDF field AntragDatum under "Datum, Unterschrift des Antragstellers/der Antragstellerin"; the Merkblatt (Randnummer 12) confirms a personally handwritten signature is required even though transmission of the signed document by email/fax/other electronic means is accepted. |

Test run with mock data

A mock application packet was assembled at conformance/de/bundeswahlleiterin/voter-registration-abroad/1.0.0/application-packet.json for a German national resident in Barcelona, Spain, last registered at a German address in Munich until 2022, requesting the postal ballot be sent to her current Spanish address — fabricated name/address/document details, not a real person. This packet was checked with a standalone script re-implementing the schema's own required/requiredWhen/validation evaluation (the GSP-0013 condition grammar all/any/not/leaf-compare, the same technique used for the last several registration/renewal cycles): 28 fields evaluated, 0 violations. Two negative-branch checks additionally confirmed both requiredWhen conditions correctly flip when their trigger field's value changes:

• formerLastNameAtGermanRegistration correctly evaluates to not required when lastNameAtGermanRegistration = "unchanged" and to required when lastNameAtGermanRegistration = "different_at_the_time".
• ballotDeliveryAddress correctly evaluates to not required when ballotDeliveryAddressChoice = "current_address_abroad" and to required when ballotDeliveryAddressChoice = "different_address".

Both tools/validate.mjs (structural/registry-path validator) and tools/validate-ajv.mjs (meta-schema validator, ajv 2020-12) pass against this document.

Explicitly out of scope for v1.0.0

• Anlage 1 (zu § 18 Absatz 6 Bundeswahlordnung), "für Rückkehrer aus dem Ausland". A structurally distinct process for a German returning to live in Germany who registers a new domestic address between the 42nd and 21st day before an election; confirmed by direct comparison of its own PDF against Anlage 2's, not modelled here.
• Anlage 2a (zu § 18 Absatz 5 Bundeswahlordnung). The narrower pathway for applicants who do not meet the priorGermanResidenceDeclaration condition but have instead acquired "persönliche und unmittelbare Vertrautheit mit den politischen Verhältnissen in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland" (personal and direct familiarity with German political conditions) — named directly by Anlage 2's own text but its separate form was not fetched or modelled this cycle.
• The assistance-person (Hilfsperson) accommodation for applicants unable to read, write, or sign the application themselves — present on both Anlage 1 and Anlage 2 as a secondary signature block, analogous to ie/electoral-commission/voter-registration's witnessType/witnessFullName fields, but not modelled here; a future version could add it following that precedent.
• The postal-ballot documents and postal-voting mechanics themselves once issued — a separate, later-in-time transaction from this one-time registration/ballot-request application.
• Any subnational European Parliament or Land-election variant of this process — this document models the Bundestag (federal) election pathway only, per the form's own title and § 12 Abs. 2 S. 1 Nr. 1 Bundeswahlgesetz citation.
• The official-use-only reverse side (page 2) of the form, completed by the Gemeindebehörde itself, not the applicant — out of scope by definition (this document models applicant-supplied data only).

Scope and jurisdiction notes

This corrects a mis-classification recorded in two earlier "GovSchema Standard Research" cycles: ie/electoral-commission/voter-registration's own VERIFICATION.md (GOV-1043) and nl/denhaag/voter-registration-abroad's own VERIFICATION.md (GOV-1121) both stated that "Germany ... confirmed non-gap: ... auto-enrol[s] with no separate citizen-initiated process." That claim is correct only for German nationals resident in Germany, whose enrollment is populated automatically from the municipal residence register (already modelled by de/bmi/residence-registration) — it did not account for German nationals living abroad and not registered at any German address, who are excluded from that automatic process and must file a citizen-initiated application, exactly the same structural gap this registry already closed for Ireland, New Zealand, France, the United States, and the Netherlands (the Netherlands' own equivalent, nl/denhaag/voter-registration-abroad, is the closest structural sibling to this document). This document closes that gap, directly against GOV-1150's own "remaining voter registration" instruction note, and should be treated as superseding the "Germany ... confirmed non-gap" language in the two VERIFICATION.md records above. National-level voter-registration coverage (domestic-plus-abroad, or an abroad-only process where domestic is genuinely automatic) now spans 10 of this registry's 11 core jurisdictions; Singapore remains the sole confirmed non-gap (NRIC-based automatic civic enrolment, confirmed during GOV-1075).

Path to a verified claim (next step)

To advance to status: verified, a reviewer applies manual-source-review-v1 (Procedure step 2) field-by-field against the live PDF (re-fetching in case the Bundeswahlleiterin has re-issued the form ahead of the next Bundestag election), confirms no discrepancy, and records the outcome here plus sets status: verified with a current verification.lastVerifiedAt/nextReviewBy. A reviewer with independent access to a completed real-world submission would further strengthen this by confirming the deadline text and Merkblatt citations against the edition current at that time — the Bundeswahlleiterin re-publishes fresh copies of Anlage 1/Anlage 2 ahead of each federal election and past editions have carried a fixed deadline date printed on page 1 (e.g. "Antragseingang bei der Gemeindebehörde bis 02.02.2025" for the 2025 election); this document deliberately does not encode that election-specific date as a field or constraint, describing the underlying 21-day rule instead.

Re-verification

Per the practice's Cadence, nextReviewBy is set to 2027-01-01 (6 months). Re-check the source on or before that date, on any source.url change, and ahead of any German federal election (the Bundeswahlleiterin may re-issue the form with a new edition mark or updated deadline framing).