fact finder
As of: 27.09.2021 11:38 a.m.
In Berlin there were serious mishaps in the federal election, which caused a lot of criticism. At the same time, false images and misleading claims are circulating that are supposed to prove an alleged electoral fraud.
“Unbelievable”, tweeted “Klartext81672869” – in the constituency of Würzburg there was not a single vote for the AfD. The user provides the tweet with the keyword “election fraud”.
In fact, there have been serious mishaps in some of Berlin’s polling stations – but in the Würzburg constituency there is a simple explanation why the AfD is involved the second vote was 6.6 percent took – in the first votes, however, landed at 0.0 percent: It was not possible to cast a first vote for the AfD here. Reason: Because of a formal error, the AfD direct candidate was not allowed to run. Original signatures were missing from the documents submitted by the party, which were also not submitted later. An omission, not a manipulation.
Old picture sold as new
The tweet is just one example of how continuously a background noise of doubt is supposed to question the course of the general election. A typical means of feeding such doubts is through misleading images. For example, a photo of a ballot box with a broken seal spread on Telegram. This was taken as evidence of tampering.
“Correctiv” noted thisthat it was an old painting that was now being sold as current. A typical procedure – images are repeatedly torn out of their actual context in order to put them in a new context and to connect them with a certain message. In this case: there was electoral fraud. the Federal election regulations also does not stipulate that ballot boxes have to be sealed.
Again and again speculation about postal voting
Immediately before the election, an anonymous fake news site, whose domain is registered in Russia, claimed that systematic election fraud had been proven. An AfD member of the state parliament from Thuringia shared this post on Facebook and wrote: “The elections in Germany have been faked for decades.”
The background to the article is speculation that there is extensive manipulation in postal votes. However, there is no evidence for this.
Topics of choice and Corona linked
In the run-up to the election, false assertions about the election were linked to the issue of Corona. It was said in messenger messages that allegedly only those who had been vaccinated or who had recovered were allowed to vote. Not true, said election supervisor Sascha Gehm im fact finder podcast of the Tagesschau clear. The choice takes place as usual – “perhaps with larger distances and a little more ventilation”. The federal government also emphasized: “Voting at the polling station is possible without a corona vaccination or test.”
Indeed are reports available according to which the police in Berlin even threatened to force election workers because they did not want to let people without masks into the overcrowded polling station. However, the Federal Returning Officer had emphasized that no one was allowed into the polling stations without a mask or a medical certificate.
In North Rhine-Westphalia there had been extra preparations in several cities to allow mask refusers to vote. So should according to WDR Among other things, mobile ballot boxes are set up outside the polling stations in Cologne.
Claims have been popping up for years
Individual examples of mishaps call into question the correct process of the respective voting, but are not proof of manipulation. In any case, it would take thousands of people who knew about a federal election to falsify the result, said election officer Gehm in the fact-finder podcast.
The publicist Karolin Schwarz had already uncovered organized troll attacks around the 2017 federal elections – and the topic of alleged electoral fraud was also an issue at the time, she emphasized in the fact finder podcast. So this narrative did not come to Germany through Donald Trump.
From the lie to the storming of the Capitol
However, after his defeat, Trump had spread the lie that the election had been stolen from him again and again around the world. Whipped Trump supporters even stormed the Capitol.
Several lawsuits against the results were dismissed because there was no evidence of fraud. For months, a private company also tried to prove Trump’s allegations in Arizona. The company Cyber Ninjas of Donald Trump supporter Doug Logan, entrusted with the examination, had to admit last week that the manual recount did not reveal any significant differences to the official result in Maricopa County. Election winner Joe Biden even received 360 votes more than were shown in the official election results.