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Germany: 90% of voters fear manipulation by foreign actors ahead of election on February 23 - Russia, U.S., China perceived top threats (www.dw.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Here is the original poll in German.

German voters are overwhelmingly concerned about foreign election interference according to a new poll published by the Brussels-based digital industry association Bitkom.

Overall, the poll found that 88% of the more than 1,000 eligible voters surveyed expressed fear that outside forces, whether governments, groups or individuals, would actively attempt to sway the vote through social media campaigns.

Ranked highest among those suspected of nefarious activity was Russia (45%), followed by the US (42%) and China (26%). There was also concern voiced over East European actors (8%).

Those voters polled also provided insight into how they form their political opinions, with 82% citing conversations with friends and family, 76% television and 69% the internet.

Some 80% of respondents felt the next government should address the problem of potential internet and social media misinformation by prioritizing digital policy.

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[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Unless germany has transitioned to electronic voting since their last election I wouldn't worry. Last i heard the german court struck down attempts to transition away from paper ballots using the idea that electronic voting is unconstitutional due to the fact that it is impossible to distinguish legitimate results from fraudulent ones. It would be great if we could adopt that type of election transparency in the usa.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It was the CCC who argued that electronic votes can't be secured to the necessary degree (which involves not being able to prove that you voted a certain way), the constitutional court listened attentively, then more or less said "that's all way too complicated, an ordinary citizen with basic education and no specialised knowledge must be able to ascertain for themselves that the elections are kosher, therefore, electronic voting is out".

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

You are correct. In laymens terms the constitutional court of germany sided with the two citizens challenging the use of electronic/digital voting machines with the thought that it is inpossible to differentiate between legitimate and fraudulent results unless a technology is presented where the votes cast can be verified as legitimate instead of being obfuscated by ghe technology of the devices themselves and requiring technical experts to translate the outcome and mechanisms of the technology.

Here is the basic text summarizing their decision.

“all essential steps of an election are subject to the possibility of public scrutiny unless other constitutional interests justify an exception . . . The use of voting machines which electronically record the voters’ votes and electronically ascertain the election result only meets the constitutional requirements if the essential steps of the voting and of the ascertainment of the result can be examined reliably and without any specialist knowledge of the subject . . . The very wide-reaching effect of possible errors of the voting machines or of deliberate electoral fraud make special precautions necessary in order to safeguard the principle of the public nature of elections.”

they didn't say that electronic votes are all fraudulent, obviously (not that this is what anyone is saying here) but rather that the technology itself is subject to manipulation by those who control the technology and know how to manipulate it or even that errors could change the results and ultimately this undermines constituent’s rights to fair elections in the age of technocratic oligarchy and multinational corporate corruption/ interference.

That being said there are obviously other ways to manipulate elections outside of the ballot counting itself such as gerrymandering, mis/disinformation and even political violence to name several but at least the german election system seems to be protected from outright manipulation of votes via obfuscated technological / programed software mechanisms

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

Gerrymandering is unknown over here, we do have personalised elections but that only influences who specifically of a party gets into parliament, not the percentages the different parties get. Voter intimidation would cause an absolute clusterfuck and the courts would probably invalidate the vote, mis/disinformation well we've had that since forever it's politics as usual. The Bild hasn't changed. Things like ballot stuffing are completely unheard of, there's too many eyes on everything, it's very common to see local party people as election observers, and with that I mean quite literally every party, also the local municipal one which doesn't even run on the state/federal level. It's a ritual.

Fun fact: You generally don't lose your right to vote when being committed of a crime, only the right to assume office, for some time, even for murder etc. Exception: Political crimes like high treason and, now that's poetic justice, electoral fraud.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

You do realize this article is about targeted political campaigns rather than straight-up vote manipulation, right?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 hours ago

Regardless i dont see how that makes my comment any less valid. Those with massive wealth use their money to support these campaigns and present an image of strong support within the population although this isnt truly the case however they dont care because they want to manipulate the narrative to manufacture consent. This wont work in Germany with their election laws. Also Germany has much better education standards than the usa so a good percentage of the population will outright reject blatant fascism.