Dresden – New scandal surrounding the state elections in Saxony: A system administrator is said to have stolen the personal data of all 430,000 voters registered in Dresden – from his workplace in the town hall! Previously, manipulated ballot papers had already appeared in two Dresden electoral districts.
Police and public prosecutors are investigating the computer expert on “suspicion of violating the Saxon Data Protection Implementation Act,” said senior public prosecutor Jürgen Schmidt (49) on Friday.
Thomas N. (54), who has now been fired, was a system administrator in the city’s own IT services company and worked, among other things, in the citizens’ office.
Data of all Dresden voters stolen
The accusation: N. is supposed to have the complete election notification directory “with personal data of 430,000 citizens of the city who are eligible to vote Dresden transferred to at least one external data carrier,” the senior public prosecutor continued.
The system administrator works in the Dresden town hall
A town hall spokesman added: “This directory contains the names, addresses and dates of birth of all eligible voters in Dresden.”
In addition to the voter data, the administrator apparently also had a private interest in the Dresden residents’ data. Schmidt: “He is accused of having unauthorizedly connected external private storage media to the state capital Dresden’s official IT technology in the period from May 2024 to October 22, 2024 and of having transferred a total of around 270,000 files.”
The data theft was not reported to the police until days later
On October 21st, the data theft was discovered in the town hall during a routine check. A day later, Thomas N.’s access was blocked. Nevertheless, the city administration gave the suspect time to comment – and thus time to destroy evidence? Only when N. had not commented on the allegations three days later did the town hall file a criminal complaint.
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The public prosecutor’s office reacted immediately and applied for a search warrant on October 25th. A day later, a judge ordered the raid on N.: “He was arrested on the same day by the police police implemented. All of the storage media available to the accused were confiscated.”
Thomas N. declared under oath that he did not use the data. But it is unclear why he stole the files. He is silent about this.
Investigators are examining the connection to another election scandal
The investigators are also examining a possible connection to another scandal surrounding the state elections on September 1st Saxony.
Local councilor Michael Schleinitz is said to have forged ballot papers for the “Free Saxons”. He is also suspected of having carried out an arson attack on an asylum center and is therefore in custody
During the counting, manipulated ballot papers appeared in two constituencies in the Langebrück district. Local councilor Michael Schleinitz (44, nursing assistant) from the right-wing extremist “Free Saxony” is suspected of having professionally pasted over crosses on postal ballot papers and re-marked them in favor of his small party (first and second votes) which is monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution.
Schleinitz, who is now in custody for an arson attack on an asylum home more than a year ago, is said to have manipulated 151 ballot papers in the local elections and 126 ballot papers in the state election in favor of the right-wing extremist “Free Saxony”.
