Are only vaccinated people allowed to vote in Germany? This claim about the federal election
is circulating on the net. But this is not true -- we at DW examine why. Let's take a
closer look.
This tweet says people without a COVID vaccination cannot vote in Germany and are banned from
entering polling stations. There is even talk of "electoral fraud".
Beatrix von Storch, an MP from the far-right Alternative for Germany party -- known as
AFD -- alleged that the Federal Returning Officer had also considered banning unvaccinated
people, in a response to his tweet.
Are unvaccinated people really denied the right to vote?
False
Fact is: Unvaccinated people are allowed to vote at
the polling stations like everyone else if they observe the applicable hygiene measures.
They can also vote by post. Voters have the right to cast their ballots regardless of
their vaccination status, confirms the Federal Returning Officer to DW.
It goes without saying that the unvaccinated can vote at the polling station. They can
also vote through postal ballots. But we must take certain protective measures. Firstly,
for protecting those coming to vote, but also the election workers. And that's why it is
certainly valid to wear a mask. Otherwise, of course, it would be nice if
people have been vaccinated, tested and recovered. That is of course particularly nice. But basically,
everyone can vote.
More than sixty million eligible voters will be able to elect a new parliament this year.
And many Germans have one concern:
Can the election be manipulated through disinformation?
82 percent fear exactly that, according to a survey. And more than every second person
has stumbled across politically motivated fake news online.
What can you do about it? We will show you some fakes and how to recognize them.
Let’s take the example of election posters. They are currently hanging all over Germany.
But not all of them are real.
This one says: "Everyone is talking about the climate; we are ruining it."
A clear fake. The CDU confirmed: The poster
is not theirs. Extinction Rebellion, a group of environmental activists, confirmed it’s
their work.
This is a special form of so-called "negative campaigning" — the attempt to defame political
opponents. Even if they are meant to be satirical, some might consider the posters to be genuine.
Some fake election posters also target top politicians.
CDU’s chancellor candidate Armin Laschet
is misquoted here: "Flood? I can only laugh about that."
That’s a fake.
"Which I personally think is even worse because people claim you have said something that
you have never done this way. Or didn't say at all. That is a problem in the democratic
debate in this election campaign."
These posters were hanging in some major German cities and intended to ridicule the Greens
and their goals.
The Greens made clear it is a fake.
Both the CDU and the Greens party suspect these are smear campaigns by political parties
like the far-right AfD.
Yes, there is the outrageous accusation that this is illegal party funding in favor of
the AfD and that the AfD is funding negative election campaigns. This allegation, this
suspicion must be investigated.
Such campaigns often see the false posters circulate on social media — with some even
going viral.
Most attacks take place digitally. And the Greens are particularly affected in the German
election. According to an investigation by the NGO Avaaz, their chancellor candidate
Annalena Baerbock is by far the most frequent target of disinformation.
Compared to Mr. Laschet and [SPD candidate] Mr. Scholz, she was affected 70 percent of
the time. Then Mr. Laschet with 29 percent. And Scholz 0 percent.
And the other thing that we found quite interesting was that in the survey that we also did with
YouGov, that 56 percent of people said that they had seen at least one of the fake news
stories about Annalena Baerbock and that's a really big audience.
Some of the misinformation circulating online says that Baerbock is planning to terminate
widow pension in order to accommodate migrants — or this bizarre one: that she would ban
pets because they emit carbon dioxide!
These are false. Baerbock never claimed such things. Such claims are not listed in
the Greens' election manifesto either.
Armin Laschet from the conservative CDU experienced another political hit. He was wrongly accused
of siphoning off donations for Germany's flood victims toward his own election campaign.
This claim is also unsubstantiated and false.
The money collected from the donations has already been partially paid out to the flood
victims.
We hardly found any disinformation on Olaf Scholz or his party, the SPD.
However, some fakes are also directed against the election itself — especially the postal
vote. A record number of postal ballots are expected this year due to the pandemic.
Some claim the postal vote is easy to manipulate. And that someone could also cast a ballot
using the names of dead people.
Does that sound familiar to you? Donald Trump and the Republicans used similar rhetoric
in the 2020 US presidential election. But: To date, there is no evidence of systemic
manipulation of postal voting
And in Germany: Can postal votes be easily manipulated?
Misleading
When voting by post, nobody can guarantee that a voter cast their vote without any influence
from third parties. However, the postal ballot itself is protected
against misuse through several measures.
In the postal vote itself, you must declare in an affidavit that you filled it out yourself,
that is the first protection. The second protection: The moment you apply
for postal voting, a so-called blocking notice is made, and you can only vote with the postal
voting documents.
Have YOU come across fakes lately? What should we take a closer look at next time? Let us
know in the comments below or by mail at factchecking@dw.com