Andreas Babler’s bid to become chairman of Austria’s Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) appeared to be a familiar story of initial promise and inevitable disappointment. For ten weeks, the left-winger’s impassioned, insurgent campaign had surely kindled enthusiasm on the Left. Yet at the party congress on Saturday, June 3 in Linz, it looked as though it wasn’t enough. Once the slightly more than six hundred delegates had cast their ballots, it was announced that Babler had earned 47 percent of the vote, falling just short of the ultimate prize. His opponent, Hans Peter Doskozil, the face of the party’s right wing, was declared the winner.

Then, a bombshell. Shortly after the results were published, public TV anchorman Martin Thür pointed out on Twitter that the sum of the valid and invalid votes didn’t match the total number of ballots cast. On the Monday afternoon, SPÖ electoral commission director Michaela Grubesa announced that a recount had uncovered a far more egregious error: the vote totals of the candidates had been switched while being entered into an Excel spreadsheet.

On the following day, Grubesa — a member of the Styrian state parliament and the domestic partner of Max Lercher, the campaign manager of Babler’s opponent Doskozil — announced her resignation as the electoral commission director. The votes were then counted for a third time. Finally, the official confirmation arrived: Babler had in fact received 53 percent of the vote — and was elected chairman of his party.