The Federal Statistical Office counted small cantons several times and provided incorrect vote shares: this led to the embarrassing BFS embarrassment

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Shame to the power of two: the figures that the federal government published on Sunday about party strength in the federal elections were incorrect. The Federal Statistical Office (BFS) discovered this on Tuesday during quality checks. On Wednesday, Chief of Cabinet Georges-Simon Ulrich (55) had to publicly crucify himself – with the rule of three: sin, reconciliation and forgiveness.

Sunday, just before midnight. Switzerland has voted and the federal government is publishing the final election results. The winners cheer, the losers cry. The figures show: the SVP is the biggest winner, the center is ahead of the FDP, the Greens are falling.

The BFS “works very hard” on Sundays, as Ulrich says. Employees check the figures. They don’t find any mistakes. Although Switzerland already speculated on Monday whether the center would get a second seat in the Federal Council, the BFS found no irregularities. The counting debacle was only noticed there on Tuesday afternoon.

Previously, there was no time for detailed follow-up checks – because there were “too many questions”. There is now a standardized protocol. After the error is confirmed, federal councilor Alain Berset (51) is informed. This initiates an administrative investigation.

Two days before the elections, Ulrich emphasized in an SRF interview how important statistics are for democracy. “It’s about people having a say.” You have to be able to trust the numbers.

Very different on Wednesday, when sin, “the greatest misfortune”, had to be admitted. “Something like that can happen,” Ulrich explains. But it is neither good nor excusable. The BFS “strongly regrets the error and takes the incident very seriously.” The now corrected party strength statistics have been recalculated – and checked – several times.

The good news: the distribution of seats is not affected, everyone who is elected can still be happy. The bad news: the BFS had to correct the FDP’s result downwards by 0.13 percentage points to 14.3 percent. At the same time, the centrist voter share was overestimated by 0.52 percentage points. With 14.1 percent, the country is once again lagging behind the FDP.

The reason for the failure of calculating the strengths of national parties is federalism and human error. Incorrect programming in the data import program for the three cantons of Appenzell Innerrhoden, Appenzell Ausserrhoden and Glarus led to the falsification. Their votes were counted “three to five times.”

But the cantonal atmosphere also causes turbulence. The three cantons supplied the data via a different system. Much to the chagrin of the BFS. “It would be our great wish that the systems would be standardized,” says section head Madeleine Schneider.

The affected cantons deny any blame. “If a change in data transmission is discussed later, we are open to it,” says the Canton of Glarus.

The ridicule and contempt of politicians will not be long in coming. FDP deputy Andrea Caroni (43, AR) says: “Blowing up the most important figures in the legislature is a colossal failure of the BfS. But I am very happy that the FDP is still in third place.”

Center party chairman Gerhard Pfister (61, ZG) takes it sportingly: the result is still above that of the CVP and BDP before the merger. And the composition of the Federal Council has yet to be discussed.

The BFS will have to wait longer for forgiveness from the SVP. The mistake detracted from her election victory. It now has a voter share of 27.9 percent. Minus 0.62 percentage points. “Every year more money flows into the administration and it can no longer compile the figures correctly,” says campaign leader Marcel Dettling (42). “There must be personnel consequences.”

But the office doesn’t want to know anything about it for the time being. “From today’s perspective, it would be premature to talk about such things,” said BFS boss Ulrich.

Source:Blick