Report: More Than Half of Greek Police Officers Estimated to Have Voted for Neo-Nazis

A newspaper report out of Greece is levying a shocking charge: more than half of Greek police officers voted for the Golden Dawn Party -- the Neo-Nazi group -- in the country's recent elections. Or at least that's how other outlets are interpreting the report. But are they correct?

The financial site Zero Hedge explains:

In a somewhat stunning revelation, especially after our earlier note on the Golden Dawn leader's 'position' on the issues of the day, GreekReporter notes via the news paper To Vima, that more than half of all police officers in Greece voted for pro-Nazi party Golden Dawn in the elections of May 6th. It's not really for us to judge (well maybe it is) but when some polling stations report Golden Dawn receiving 19-24% of the votes, things are going from the dismal to the horrific (and potentially chaotic) very fast.

AnsaMed has more of the numbers:

More than half of all police officers in Greece voted for pro-Nazi party Chrysi Avgi' (Golden Dawn) in the elections of May 6. This is the disconcerting result of an analysis carried out by the authoritative newspaper To Vima (TheTribune) in several constituencies in Athens, where 5,000 police officers in service in the Greek capital also cast their ballot.

At some polling stations Chrysi Avgi' obtained 19 to 24% of votes.

Others, like Agios Panteleimonas and Kypseli, traditional strongholds of the party, reached 15 to 18%. According to the newspaper, at the 11 polling stations (from 806 to 816) located near the police station (Ellas), Chrysi Avgi' received most votes, reaching 18.64% at station 813 and 23.67% at number 816.

Confused? Russia Today tries to explain how the paper reached its conclusion:

The journalists studied the voting results in several constituencies in Athens, where 5,000 police officers in service in the Greek capital cast their ballots.

At some polling stations, the party obtained a striking 19 to 24 per cent of votes. According to the newspaper, at the 11 polling stations (numbered from 806 to 816) located near the police station Ellas, the neo-Nazis received most votes. The four polling stations located near the riot police station MAT, used by the police, recorded percentages of between 13 and 19.

The newspaper underlines these figures are impressive.

Based on the electoral lists, 550 to 700 people voted at each of these voting stations, of which 20 to 30 per cent were police officers.

The newspaper then calculated that 45 to 59 per cent of police officers voted for Golden Dawn.

So it seems a couple qualifiers might be in order. First, the data is based on a select group of polling stations. And those polling stations are only located in Athens. That leaves an obvious question: Can the data really be applied to all officers in Greece? It wouldn't seem like it, and that could be chalked up to some nuance being lost in translation. A better conclusion could be that more then half of Greek police officers in Athens might have voted for the Neo-Nazi party. And it should be added there is a fair amount speculation and estimation involved (based on the reports we've seen).

But even if the reports are slightly misunderstanding the data, it still stands to reason that (if To Vima's analysis numbers are correct) some police officers in Greece probably did vote for the neo-Nazi party (i.e. the party received plenty of votes in police-dominated polling stations). And that's still disturbing.