Twitter Jeopardizes German Election

Twitterers Post Confidential Exit Poll Info

Twitterers in Germany have again posted confidential election-related information online, raising fears that premature updates on social networking sites might jeopardize the legitimacy of the upcoming federal election.

Following a string of "Twitter affairs" over the past months, German officials are now concerned the illegal release of data could influence voters during parliamentary election on September 27 and threaten anyone found guilty of leaking premature information with fines of up to €50,000.

Illegal Poll Results Circulating Online

Just last month 2 Twitter users posted data believed to be derived from exit polls predicting the outcomes of the state elections in Saarland, Saxony and Thuringia around 90 minutes before such information was supposed to be released to the general public.

Another scandal saw leaked exit poll related information on the Twitter account of Patrick Rudolph, the head of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party who, despite denying all allegations, has since deactivated his user account.

Fine for Chatty Twitterers

In Germany, publication of data gleaned from exit polls is restricted and treated as a crime in order to prevent to influencing the outcome of an election through pre-released information. For example, people who have not yet voted could be encouraged to refrain from doing so in the belief that their preferred candidate no longer has any chance of winning.

"It's time to make it clear that this breach of confidence is not a trivial offense but has a price that will cost you €50,000, to be exact. That's the fine stipulated by the election law," comments Germany's conservative paper Die Welt on the recent twitter scandals. "State election officials are absolutely right in their attempt to identity those chatty Twitterers who collaborated with the polling companies and to fine them in order to deter others from following suit."

Twittergate a Serious Threat to Poll Results?

The response to "Twittergate" has been mixed with commentators and Germany's leading newspapers coming down on both sides of the issue. Experts like Roderich Egeler, Germany's federal elections supervisor, are calling for a crackdown on Twitter users, predicting a "catastrophe" if the leaks cause the pre-Twittered election results to be declared invalid.

For others such as Richard Hilmer, the head of Berlin-based pollster Infratest-dimap, the pre-released information on Twitter is not a threat, but more a reminder for the responsibilities of journalists and politicians not to pick up Twittered information. "Our client ARD (one of Germany's leading national public broadcasting corporations) is used to precise opinion polls and not vague speculations about possible outcomes of the election," explains Hilmer.

Meanwhile the country's Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries proposed to either ban exit polls entirely or to release the first data results close to 2 hours after all polling stations have already been closed, a move that would cause "no major damage to democracy."