Dachau election fraud scandal
The Dachau election fraud scandal in 2002 is one of the largest known cases of election fraud in the Federal Republic of Germany . In the municipal and mayoral elections, large numbers of ballot papers were manipulated in favor of some CSU candidates .
elections
District assembly and city council election
In the city council election on March 3, 2002, the CSU (43.3%) was able to achieve a relative majority and 18 out of 40 seats with a large lead over the “ non-partisan civil society ” (ÜB; 18.18%). The SPD received 18.15 percent of the vote. In the council , the CSU achieved an absolute majority.
Mayor election
Before the mayoral elections incumbent was Kurt Piller (UB) as a big favorite. Six years earlier he had been able to sensationally prevail against the candidate of the CSU, the former Sparkasse director Wolfgang Aechtner. Although Piller's reputation had declined in the run-up to the elections due to a lawsuit by the staff council of the city of Dachau because of alleged violations of the law of his body and differences of opinion with the former coalition partners in the city council, the SPD and the “Alliance for Dachau”, he still enjoyed great popularity among the population .
In the mayoral election , the CSU challenger Peter Bürgel (39.3%) surprisingly received the most votes and was able to relegate Piller (38.1%) to second place with a margin of 198 votes. Since Bürgel missed an absolute majority, the runoff election now had to decide. He won this on March 17th with a lead of just 73 votes.
Suspected election fraud
Investigations
Shortly after the elections, doubts arose about the lawful conduct of the elections. Members of the “Alliance for Dachau” were able to submit copies of ballot papers that matched each other in writing. This led to the conclusion that these had to be completed by the same person. In the following investigation by the Criminal Investigation more inconsistencies came to light: Some 3,500 ballots were gone missing from the town hall, more ballot papers and ballot papers were in the paper found. Further indications of a forgery were that the results of the postal vote deviated unusually strongly from the other voting districts.
But Kurt Piller also came under fire. He is said to have been made aware of inconsistencies in the ballot papers by a polling officer while the votes were being counted and asked her to make copies of the ballot papers.
An expert opinion commissioned by the Munich II public prosecutor's office came to the conclusion that the ballot papers concerned were “probably filled out by a person”. In addition to the city council elections, the district council and mayor elections were increasingly the focus of the investigations.
In the following weeks, the announcement of the final election result was repeatedly postponed. The CSU majority in the Bavarian state parliament rejected an urgent motion by the SPD demanding that the elections be declared invalid, on the grounds that “a mere suspicion of violations of the electoral law” is insufficient. On April 30, the final election results were announced publicly. This provided the basis to be challenged within 14 days.
In his inaugural address, Lord Mayor Peter Bürgel defended the outcome of the election: “I'm here today because I was properly elected.” In contrast to the city council election, he saw “no abnormalities” in the OB election.
Citizen Protests
There was also increasing dissatisfaction among the population. For example, strangers dumped a large, steaming pile of dung in front of the Dachau town hall on Friday night . A “Action Alliance Democracy for Dachau” established by several parties collected 3,800 signatures for new elections within a short period of time. Around 100 citizens demonstrated at the first meeting of the newly elected city council with mafia hats and bananas against the suspected election fraud.
First personal consequences
The first personnel consequences followed in mid-May 2002. The CSU city councilor Wolfgang Aechtner resigned from office. He justified this step with the suspicions against him. Shortly before, a witness had declared with an affidavit that Aechtner was involved in the election manipulation. Jener explained that Aechtner had collected voting notifications through around 800 house calls in order to be able to obtain postal voting documents. He had filled it out at home "with the same pen".
Aechtner was arrested on May 27. The investigating chief public prosecutor was forced to take this step because there was a risk of blackout . Aechtner acted on witnesses and evidence . Later he was dismissed from the city council at his own request for “health reasons”.
On June 7th, the city councilor Georgios Trifinopoulos (CSU) was arrested. Like Aechtner, he is said to be involved in the manipulations.
After Aechtner had made a confession, charges were brought against him and later also against Trifinopoulos. The investigations against four other suspects were discontinued.
In addition, according to a newspaper report in the Süddeutsche Zeitung , Aechtner admitted that he had manipulated the Dachau municipal elections for the fourth time since 1984.
Scheduling by-elections
After the district office and the government of Upper Bavaria had canceled the results of the city council and district council elections in June 2002 , a decision on an OB by-election was pending. In addition to the Bavarian state parliament, which with the majority of the CSU parliamentary group had rejected the request to repeat the OB election, and thus attracted the displeasure of the opposition , which Stoiber described as the "stooge of the election forgers", Bürgel also rejected despite the internal and to resign from public pressure. However, the election was subsequently recognized as invalid by an instruction from the government of Upper Bavaria. Thus the way for the mayor's by-election was free.
The fact that the elections should only be repeated caused further controversy, since, in contrast to new elections, the lists of candidates could not be changed, and thus the confessed Aechtner and Trifinopoulos would also run. For example, some CSU candidates initially refused to run on a list along with “electoral fraudsters”.
Role of the CSU
For a long time the CSU tried to downplay the importance of the election fraud , which took place exclusively in favor of some CSU candidates, and refused to have the elections declared invalid. In other bodies, too, the way to new elections was blocked for a long time and always referred to the investigations of the public prosecutor's office. Only when the manipulation was proven did the CSU local chairman Gertrud Schmidt-Podolsky draw conclusions and resign. In addition, the CSU stated, however, that the party as a whole was not affected, that it was solely a matter of “criminal acts by individuals”. Although the defeated mayoral candidate Piller raised allegations against the CSU and the city administrations that there was a network and "middlemen in the city administration", this could neither be proven nor refuted.
The efforts of the opposition at local and state level to transfer the scandal to the entire party and chairman Edmund Stoiber and thus to improve their own position in the election year 2002 failed.
A draft law introduced by the SPD in the Bavarian state parliament in May 2003 to be able to nominate new candidates in by-elections in the future was rejected by the CSU majority.
By-elections
On September 22nd, 2002 the by-elections for the Dachau district assembly and city council took place. With a turnout that was around 20 percentage points higher than in the March election, the CSU suffered only minor losses.
They received 39.5 percent (−3.8%) of the votes in the city council and thus 16 seats (−2 seats). The non-partisan civil community and the SPD won easily and each received one seat. In the district election the CSU got 43.3 percent, the SPD came in second place with 20.8 percent.
| Political party | City council election | City council by-election |
|---|---|---|
| CSU | 43.30% (18 seats) | 39.53% (16 seats) |
| Overpart. Civic community | 18.18% (8 seats) | 21.03% (9 seats) |
| SPD | 18.15% (7 seats) | 20.56% (8 seats) |
| Alliance for Dachau | 9.65% (4 seats) | 8.46% (3 seats) |
| Free voters Dachau | 4.18% (1 seat) | 4.34% (2 seats) |
| republican | 4.13% (1 seat) | 3.01% (1 seat) |
| FDP | 2.41% (1 seat) | 3.06% (1 seat) |
On February 16, 2003, the mayor's runoff election was repeated. Here, Peter Bürgel was able to prevail clearly against Piller with a 1,221 vote lead (54.0%) and thus legally became Lord Mayor of the City of Dachau.
| Candidate, party | Result March 3, 2002 | Runoff election March 17, 2002 | By-election February 16, 2003 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peter Bürgel, CSU | 6,656 votes (39.28%) | 7,706 votes (50.24%) | 8,182 votes (54.03%) |
| Kurt Piller, ÜB | 6,458 votes (38.11%) | 7,633 votes (49.76%) | 6,961 votes (45.97%) |
| Katharina Ernst, SPD | 2,547 votes (15.03%) | - | - |
| Lilian Schlumberger-Dogu, Alliance | 779 votes (4.60%) | - | - |
| Robert Konopka, Republican | 505 votes (2.98%) | - | - |
Legal consequences
After about six months of investigation, charges were brought against Aechtner and Trifinopoulos. Since they had already made confessions during their pre-trial detention , the trials were comparatively unspectacular after prior arrangements between the public prosecutor and the defense.
At the end of January 2003, Aechtner was sentenced to a two-year suspended sentence and a monetary charge of 125,000 euros for election fraud in 466 cases and additionally for attempted election fraud in 38 cases . In addition to collecting election documents during house calls, he is also said to have stolen letter documents in one case. Aechtner also manipulated six cases in the mayor's runoff election. In May, Trifinopoulos was found guilty in 140 cases of election fraud and 35 times inciting false affidavits and sentenced to 15 months probation and 15,000 euros in damages.
On October 4, 2004, the 3rd Civil Chamber of the Munich II Regional Court sentenced the two election fraudsters to pay the costs for the by-elections to the city and the district of Dachau. On August 8, 2006, the Munich II Regional Court put the financial damage together at around 116,300 euros, which Aechtner and Trifinopoulos have to pay.
See also
supporting documents
- ^ "Suspicious characters", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 23, 2002, p. 63.
- ^ "Kripo determined in the Dachau town hall", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 20, 2002, p. 50.
- ^ "Dachau election result will be official today", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 30, 2002, p. 56.
- ^ "Dachau's new OB wants 'orderly conditions'", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , April 30, 2002, p. 49.
- ↑ "A load of crap for Dachau's local politics", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 2, 2002, p. 55.
- ↑ "Poisoned Climate in Dachau", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 16, 2002, p. 50.
- ^ "First arrest for Dachau election fraud", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 28, 2002, p. 44.
- ↑ a b "Dachau elections must be repeated", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 8, 2002, p. 58.
- ↑ "The local election in Dachau was faked", in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , May 10, 2002, p. 4.
- ^ "Dachau elections more often falsified", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 28, 2002, p. 48.
- ^ "Dachau election scandal divided the state parliament", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 14, 2002, p. 48.
- ^ "Lots of local antics, no affairs", in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , July 13, 2002, p. 3.
- ↑ "CSU rejects changes to the electoral law because of the Dachau scandal", dpa , May 22, 2003.
- ↑ "Accused of election fraud in 466 cases", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , January 27, 2003, p. 47.
- ^ "Probation for election fraudsters", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , May 7, 2003, p. 51.
- ^ " Dachau election fraudsters have to pay more than 116,000 euros ", in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , August 8, 2006.