On Monday, June 5, Austria’s Social Democratic Party (SPÖ) made an astonishing announcement. At the special party conference two days beforehand, the leadership race between Hans Peter Doskozil and Andreas Babler was to be decided by an assembly of 609 appointed delegates at a special party conference. Babler gave an impassioned speech that brought a standing ovation, yet it was to no avail.

The results came in: out of 596 valid ballots, Doskozil had won with 316 to Babler’s 279. As Doskozil gave his victory speech and Babler congratulated him magnanimously, journalist Martin Thür was quick to spot an error in the SPÖ’s published results: “316 plus 279 equals 595, not 596.” So, where did this extra vote come from? The electoral commission at the conference in Linz called SPÖ headquarters in Vienna, but with party staff off work for the rest of the day and Sunday, the SPÖ’s voting committee would only reconvene on Monday and find the missing vote was far from the only error.

Astonishingly, they found the votes on an Excel spreadsheet had been mixed up and attributed to the wrong candidates. Andreas “Andi” Babler, the socialist mayor of the small, Lower Austrian town of Traiskirchen, had, in fact, won by 317 votes to 280 and would be the new leader of the SPÖ.