WĂĽrzburg, Germany, March 25, (dpa/GNA) – The mayor of a small town in the southern German state of Bavaria, has admitted committing electoral fraud, investigators announced on Wednesday.
The mayor of WĂĽlfershausen an der Saale was recently confirmed in office, following local elections.
The politician, from the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavaria-only sister party of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservatives, is alleged to have opened postal voting documents and falsified several ballot papers for the municipal council election, the mayoral election, and the district council election, according to the public prosecutor’s office in Schweinfurt.
He then resealed the ballot envelopes or replaced them with substitute envelopes provided by the municipality.
“The number of ballot papers falsified in each case is the subject of ongoing investigations,” the public prosecutor’s office said.
Municipality figures show that 1,278 citizens were entitled to vote, with 472 valid votes cast for the now accused incumbent.
The mayor did not comment on the allegations when asked several times by dpa. He is presumed innocent until a final judgement is passed.
The mayor was confirmed in office in the local elections on March 8, a position he has held since 2018.
During his interrogation on Tuesday, the suspect said that he had wanted to support his wife, who ran for the municipal council, according to a spokesperson for the public prosecutor’s office.
However, according to the investigators, the man also allegedly manufactured additional votes for himself.
Officials are currently reviewing whether the findings will change the election results, investigators said.
It is unclear whether the accused has resigned from his mayoral office.
Under the German Criminal Code, electoral fraud can be punished with a prison sentence of up to five years.
GNA