Excel gaffe sees party elect wrong leader

Ah, it’s all Excel’s fault again, isn’t it?

Austria’s Social Democratic Party ran an election over the weekend to determine its new leader.

After nearly 600 members cast their votes, it was announced that Burgenland governor Hans Peter Doskozil had edged out Traiskirchen mayor Andreas Babler to claim the hot seat.

However, despite a supposed 53–47% victory over his rival, Doskozil’s elation was short-lived.

Well, he got to celebrate for two days.

The spreadsheet containing the results was found to contain a cock-up (or two), which meant the results were the wrong way around.

Babler had actually won by a 53–47% margin, leaving Doskozil heartbroken and the organisers with egg on their faces.

Read more about it at:

➤ The Guardian
➤ Washington Post

Interesting that this has been described as a ‘computer error’ and a ‘technical error’ by various sources. Not one mention of ‘human error’.

We don’t know the ins and outs of why this problem came to be, but I did exchange a few tweets with Dr Simon Thorne, programme chair for The European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group. He’s an expert on spreadsheet mishaps, so I’m sure the finer details will be brought to light in due course.

For now, let’s not blame incompetence or point fingers at anyone. 👉🤷‍♂️🤷‍♀️👈

BLAME EXCEL! 🫵