Sa, Nov 18th 2023
In the national elections last October there were counting mistakes leading to false initial results.
The initial results stated that the FDP had fallen behind the Center party. This led to an intense discussion, and some uncertainty, about the allocation of Federal Council seats.
Within 48 hours there were multiple corrections announced:
Understandably there followed a good deal of indignation towards the Federal Statistics Office which had bungled what was arguably the single most important statistical analysis.
The Media also communicated their frustration. The Tages-Anzeiger newspaper, for example, demanded that “The debacle must have consequences.”
‘During the 2007 elections, SRF and the news agency did not wait for a federal office to calculate the results for them. They collected the figures from the cantons themselves and calculated the result. Many media companies spared themselves this work for the 2023 elections.‘ reports Ktipp.
Ktipp, a consumer protection non-profit government took it upon themselves to check the election data themselves, and revealed that there was yet another error:
‘In the canton of Lucerne, 8711 votes from two lists were erroneously not attributed to the SVP, although all candidates are members of the SVP. As a result, the party received 28.0 percent instead of 27.9 percent nationwide.‘
The various corrections did not have any impact on the seats won in the National Parliament, however they do have relevance relating to the true distribution of the electorate’s vote.
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