Overview

• Moers began sending voter notifications on August 12—with some postal codes served as early as August 9—and published a list of seven candidates to succeed outgoing mayor Christoph Fleischhauer.
• Brief-voting offices in Bottrop opened on August 11 at the Rathaus and Kirchhellen sites, and by that Monday around 5,500 postal-vote applications had been submitted.
• Both cities are finalizing polling-station arrangements, with Bottrop setting up 69 venues—including a new barrier-free room at Morianhaus—and Moers readying an online polling-place finder.
• Authorities are emphasizing inclusive voting rules across NRW, allowing 16-year-olds and EU nationals to participate, issuing multilingual outreach materials, and preparing yellow ballots for the Integrationsausschuss.
• In Münster, the University of Münster and University of Duisburg-Essen launched a Kommunalwahl-Navi online tool that matches voter preferences with party positions on local issues.