Union and SPD are fighting for the Chancellery.
The polls could influence the behavior of many voters this time around.
How long can Sunday questions be published?
Berlin - It has been a long time since the polls before a federal election were followed with such great tension as this year: In 2005, Angela Merkel's Union and Gerhard Schröder's SPD were only separated by a small percentage point.
Since then, there have been hardly any doubts about the outcome of the elections before the polls - at least with a view to the strongest force in parliament and the election of chancellor.
Merkel always had the situation under control.
The situation was completely different in the super election year 2021. In the spring and summer months alone, three parties - the Union, the Greens and the SPD - took turns at the top of the Sunday questions.
And even on election day it was still not certain that Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats would bring their lead to the finish line.
According to a different survey, many Germans want to vote strategically in 2021 - and so the (tight) results of the surveys could ultimately also influence the outcome of the election.
Exit polls: Aiwanger tweeted a poll on the day of the general election - why this is forbidden
The opinion pollers and survey clients are also aware of this. Sat.1 Bayern and the GMS institute, for example, did not want to publish any more Sunday questions in the week before the election. Most recently, you limited yourself to querying coalition preferences. The institutes Allensbach and Forsa, however, brought current surveys among the people on Friday. That is of course allowed - Hubert Aiwanger, on the other hand, made a firm breach of the rules on election day: Bavaria's Vice-Prime Minister and Federal Head of Free Voters published a so-called exit poll of the research group Elections * on Twitter.
This is precisely what is forbidden, as the Bundestag's scientific services made clear to an expertise indirectly named in a “state of affairs” shortly after the 2017 election. It is forbidden to “publish the results of voter surveys in the period from voting until the polling stations close at 6 p.m.”, they declared, referring to Section 32, Paragraph 2 of the Federal Election Act.
To justify this, the experts write, referring to an annotated edition of the Basic Law: "If voting were to take place on the morning of election day without knowledge of the poll results and in the afternoon with the corresponding information, the argument goes, the vote would be cast under unequal conditions." Aiwanger could well threaten a penalty.
The disregard of the ban is an administrative offense that can be punished with a fine of up to 50,000 euros.
In the event of a “serious violation of equality or freedom of choice”, an electoral review procedure could even be initiated.
Polls before the federal election in 2021: This is how long Sunday questions can be published
In principle - and as long as they are not published during the opening hours of the polling stations - election polls are protected by the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression; also in view of their possible influence on voting decisions: "The manipulation of the voter by the survey results is rated no greater than with other electoral information sources."
It is also clear to the experts of the Scientific Service that this still valid legal assessment raises questions. In previous years, the media and institutes had held back with poll publications shortly before the federal election - but as early as 2017, Sunday questions had been published by the Friday before election day, they wrote. In addition, the number of postal voters is increasing, it says in the "state of affairs". An effect that is likely to be reinforced by the Corona crisis.
Most recently, the Forsa Institute and the Federal Returning Officer even argued legally over the question of whether postal voters' preferences may be included in the results of the survey. A publication ban affects the freedom of reporting. The publication of voter polls is part of the political and democratic process, decided the Hessian Administrative Court on the Wednesday before the election (September 22nd).
All of this could lead to further debates in the future.
For the time being, however, one thing is clear: The publication of polls is only prohibited from 8 a.m. on election day.
And as in 2017, further water levels are likely to roll in at least until the Friday before the federal elections in 2021.
At the same time, the opinion pollers themselves emphasize that the Sunday questions are vague.
The ultimate truth will only be delivered by the final election result, sometime in the night on Monday morning.
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