Election Day

1. A few years back, a friend of mine had a job doing part of a survey at a polling station; this also involved reporting the final vote count to headquarters, so she had to stick around until the very end. After the third count had yielded yet another result, the bloke sort of in charge (but with no real authority) announced that it was late and he wanted to go home and why not take the average of the three counts for each party and candidate? This was agreed upon. Democracy in action, baby!

2. Given my recent overwhelming success with a similar prediction, let me guess that these will be the national elections with the lowest participation rate in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany. I don't even know what the number to beat is, though I'll guess that anything under 75% should do. Really, I'm too lazy to look this up. Update probably between six and seven CET.

Update 17:39: Just seen that election turnout by two o'clock indeed suggests a new record low; trust me, hadn't seen those numbers when I wrote the first version of this post. The article also informs us that the number to beat is 77.7% (from four years ago).

Update 21:17: The final numbers aren't in yet, but turnout seems to be in the 72% region.

Update 28-09: The official number is 72.2%.