German officials have launched an investigation into how results of the country's election appeared on Twitter before polling stations closed.
Messages containing results which turned out to be very close to those revealed by the official exit polls appeared before 7pm (Irish time) yesterday.
It is illegal to make public exit poll data before voting has finished because of fears that it could influence people yet to cast their ballots. Anyone convicted of leaking such data could face a €50,000 fine.
While several tweets had figures that corresponded closely to the final results others were way off the mark.
A spokesman for the federal election commission said a special team had been formed to ascertain whether actual figures obtained from pollsters were leaked.