Posted on 07/14/2021 10:28:21 AM PDT by Olog-hai
German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has sought to head off far-right claims of voter fraud ahead of Germany’s general election in September while highlighting threats of cyberattacks from both inside and outside Germany.
At a press conference on Wednesday flanked by the heads of Germany’s election authority, domestic intelligence agency, the BfV, and cybersecurity agency, the BSI, Seehofer laid out the security threats to Germany’s election and how the authorities are planning to fend them off.
“Our authorities will do everything thinkable to make sure the Bundestag election will be carried out in an orderly and secure way,” Seehofer told reporters.
But it fell to Federal Returning Officer Georg Thiel, the man charged with overseeing Germany’s elections, to fill in the details, specifically rejecting the claims of potential mail-in voter fraud made by MPs for the far-right AfD party.
Much like in the US, the coronavirus pandemic has led to an increase in the number of mail-in votes during 2021, a “super election year” when Germany is staging six state elections and a national election.
This led AfD Bundestag member Stephan Brandner, among others, to speculate openly, without providing evidence, about the possibility of manipulation. As mail-in ballot boxes stand around “for weeks” in town halls across the country, Brandner said, “no one knows what happens to them.” …
(Excerpt) Read more at dw.com ...
Germany uses 100% pen-and-paper ballots, so cyberattacks cannot target the ballots directly, FWIW. Mail-in ballots? There’s probably always been certain numbers of “assisted voting” cases, especially with the elderly.
Voters are registered in their district of residence, and lists are kept at the polling stations, where you have to provide ID. You’re then struck from the list. Don’t see how multiple votes by one person would be possible.
All the stuff that Democrats would label “racist” if applied in the US. Hmm.
Russia?
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