Georg Thiel likes to use a new German word to describe a proven process.

The "old school" vote, that is, with paper and pen, "he finds" reassuring, "says the Federal Returning Officer, because hackers have no chance.

The “master of the numbers”, who will announce the provisional official final result on election night, has to be prepared for some innovations: According to estimates, every second voter could cast his or her vote by letter in the Bundestag election.

Helene Bubrowski

Political correspondent in Berlin.

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Many people have already done this - and this results in a problem that the Cologne-born Thiel wanted to get out of the way: opinion research institutes not only asked voters who they would vote on September 26, but also the postal voters which party they would vote for and also included these answers. Thiel sees this as a violation of the electoral law, which prohibits the publication of the results of voter surveys after voting, and warned the institutes with reference to the threat of a fine. The Forsa Institute did not want to accept that, now the Wiesbaden Administrative Court has to decide how far the polling institutes can go. This question is of fundamental importance, the influence of the institutes on the voting decision is already being viewed critically.

Controversial personality

The general election is Thiel's first in this role.

Shortly after the last election on November 1, 2017, the lawyer, born in 1957, was appointed President of the Federal Statistical Office, who is traditionally also the Federal Returning Officer.

He began his civil protection career in 1988 at the Federal Office for Civil Protection.

His path led him via the Federal Ministry of the Interior to the Technical Relief Organization (THW), of which he became President, and then back to the Ministry.

At the height of the refugee crisis, he went to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees as deputy head, but only stayed a year and then initially moved to the Federal Statistical Office as Vice President.

The man with the Cologne singsong appears friendly in public. But internally it should be different - not exactly "old school" in the good sense: Numerous employees spoke up anonymously and complained about a "climate of fear", "humiliation" and "bullying". Thiel explained the anger that there is now at the Federal Statistical Office with the pandemic. But allegations have been with him for a long time. During his time at THW, an employee committed suicide and named Thiel as the trigger in his farewell letter. The then Federal Minister of the Interior Schäuble thought the allegations were baseless, Thiel was transferred anyway. It is no secret that many at the Federal Statistical Office are happy that the Wiesbaden authority will get a new president in the foreseeable future.