A European Parliament member, Fabio De Masi, has raised concerns about discrepancies in the counting of election results. He claims that there were transmission errors from the local to the federal election authority, which may have affected the outcome of the election.
De Masi based his concerns on a video posted on the social media platform TikTok, which shows a user counting the votes on their computer screen and claims that thousands of votes for the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht (BSW) were not accurately reported. The video suggests that the votes were intentionally misallocated to other parties, with the false results then being reported to the federal election authority.
De Masi has stated that he does not believe this was a deliberate attempt to disadvantage the BSW, but rather a series of transmission errors. He has promised to investigate the matter further and has already reposted the video on his own social media account.
The BSW and its partner party, Bündnis Deutschland (BD), are concerned that the votes may have been misallocated, with the BSW potentially losing up to 8,000 votes. The BD received 79,012 second-preference votes, according to preliminary results.
It remains to be seen whether the BSW will challenge the election results or request a re-count. The party may argue that the transmission errors are a legitimate reason to question the outcome of the election.
Some social media users have criticized the BSW, accusing them of being bad losers and questioning the democratic process. De Masi has responded to these criticisms, stating that the party’s actions are a legitimate exercise of their right to question the election results.
The outcome of the investigation may also have implications for a potential lawsuit at the Constitutional Court. The court may consider the issue of the votes of German expatriates, which could have a significant impact on the election outcome.
The party’s leadership has also announced that they will file a complaint with the authorities over the dissemination of false opinion poll results on the X platform, which they claim affected the election outcome.