That can be expensive: The top candidate of the Free Voters, Hubert Aiwanger, has published the alleged intermediate status of a by-election survey on Twitter. This kind of possible influence is prohibited.
Hubert Aiwanger, Deputy Prime Minister of Bavaria and the leading candidate for Free Voters in the federal elections, dropped an allegedly illegal tweet on election Sunday, causing outrage.
At around 4 p.m., the 50-year-old tweeted an alleged interim result of the so-called post-election survey of the research group Elections at 3 p.m., combined with an election call for his party (“Please send the last votes to us Free Voters!”). After a short time, the tweet was deleted again. It is unclear how many of his around 20,000 followers took note of the tweet.
Administrative offense by Hubert Aiwanger?
The so-called post-election surveys by polling institutes at the polling stations (also known as exit polls) are used to create election forecasts for the television stations at 6 p.m. and should remain secret until the polling stations close. According to the Federal Election Act, prior publication can be punished as an administrative offense with a fine of up to 50,000 euros. In this way, undue influence on voters on election day is to be prevented.
The reactions to the Aiwangers tweet were correspondingly. “In an unbelievable case of election manipulation and voter influence. That is deeply undemocratic and must have consequences!”, said, for example, CSU General Secretary Markus Blume. The deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament, Arif Tasdelen, wrote: Now the measure is finally full. Aiwanger is no longer sustainable and has to be dismissed by Prime Minister Söder.”
The Federal Returning Officer did not comment on the incident until late afternoon.
Sources: ,,,, DPA news agency
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