back to article German state election exit polls leaked on Twitter

German election officials are once again shaking their fists at Twitter after forecasts for several state elections were leaked ahead of schedule. It's the second time that German election data have prematurely circulated on the Web2.0rhea service. On Sunday, a pair of Twitter users posted exit poll results for state …

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  1. Sabine Miehlbradt
    Boffin

    Just in case

    you are wondering why we make such a fuss about it.

    German governments are/were often coalitions between a big party and a small one. Sometimes the small party does not make the 5% cut, so the big party does not have their expected partner.

    So if voters who want big party C to rule see that little party F is scraping around the 5% mark, they may decide to vote F instead of C to supply C with a partner.

    There is also the fact that majorities may depend on a small party making the cut and taking seats from the other parties. In the past, such things often made or broke governments. Currently the political landscape is changing fast so the old 2-party coalitions are getting rarer. In the eighties/nineties it used to be either christian democrats + liberals or social democrats + greens, now we get things like grand coalition (social + christian democrats), traffic lights (social democrats, liberals, greens) or Jamaika (christian democrats, liberals, greens)

  2. Pete 8
    Troll

    A Business idea for Twitter®

    Print out all tweets onto a soft 2-ply tissue, roll it up like a scroll on a tubular inner and sell in packs of 4/6/8, so people can wipe themselves and flush.

    This would allow for:

    - promotion of the company,

    - an actual use for the info,

    - and an actual revenue stream!

    I would call it "Twatroll, even the Pope visits the woods!"

  3. Moss Icely Spaceport
    Grenade

    Germany, politics....

    ....what could possibly go wrong?

  4. Bilby
    Coat

    A little bird told me...

    "One of the leaky Tweets came from the account of Patrick Rudolph, head of the CDU in the city of Radebeul in Saxony."

    Radebeul gives you wiiings... not tweets.

    Mine's the one with next year's election results in the pocket...

  5. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

    Start with the basics

    What on earth is anyone doing with Internet access near election data? Actually, any form of communication should be prevented other than what's required to pass on the result to the central register - that can't be that hard to understand..

  6. collateral damage
    Coat

    ahead of time

    "The suspicion is that the data was leaked from either a political party or the media, as both receive the information ahead of time to prepare speeches and news reports."

    Just don't give it to them 'ahead of time'. Could solve all your problems.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And not a single mention of the PirateParty

    I mean, why cover questions related to real IT questions when there is twitter

  8. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Big Brother

    The solution is...

    ...don't start tallying until the polling stations have closed.

    But that would be too hard on the politicians, right?

  9. Christian Berger

    Pirate Party

    In most of the places the Piratenpartei was taking part they got more than 7% of the votes.

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