German exit-poll leak via Twitter sparks concern

ORGANISERS OF Germany’s general election on September 27th have warned of a potential “damage to democracy” after exit-poll results…

ORGANISERS OF Germany’s general election on September 27th have warned of a potential “damage to democracy” after exit-poll results in weekend state elections were leaked on the internet before polls closed.

A repeat later this month of Sunday’s leak – made 90 minutes before polls closed via the Twitter online social-networking service – could end in a court challenge to the results and, in an extreme case, a rerun of the poll.

“It would be a worst-case scenario if the exit-poll results were to become known before polling stations closed,” said federal election commissioner Roderich Egeler.

He has called for a more restrictive approach to exit-poll data and demanded emergency talks with Germany’s polling agencies ahead of the general election.

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The agencies produce exit polls for television stations and political parties, with first results usually available two hours before the end of polling at 6pm. The information is used by media organisations to plan coverage and by politicians to plan post-election speeches.

The €50,000 fine for leaking this information reflects the fear that exit-poll results can influence an ongoing election. “There is a real danger that an election could be falsified,” said Wolfgang Bosbach, a senior member of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), after news of the weekend leak.

The figures leaked via Twitter for the weekend elections in three federal states differed only marginally from exit-poll results published two hours later when polls closed.

One Twitter account that published the results belonged to a CDU politician who rejected any involvement in leaking the results and deleted his account.

Germany has been grappling with the problem posed by Twitter since the leak in May of the results of the re-election of German president Horst Köhler before the official announcement.

“People, you can watch the football in peace, the election worked out,” wrote CDU politician Julia Klöckner on Twitter. She was later reprimanded for the leak.

Germany is not alone: preliminary results of last autumn’s general election in Canada found their way on to Twitter before final polls closed.

German election authorities know there is little hope of gagging Twitter users: the service allows anonymous users to send short messages to their “subscribers” within seconds via a computer or mobile phone.

With little hope of identifying the Twitter messenger, Mr Egeler has suggested that Germany consider following the lead of Singapore and banning exit polls entirely.