“The AfD was missing from postal ballots in Leipzig for the 2025 Bundestag election, so the party's voters there could not cast a valid vote for it.”

Verdict

AfD candidates appeared normally on the postal ballots in Leipzig, and AFP's verification of the actual ballots confirmed the party was listed. The claim was part of a package of pre-election manipulation narratives — including a fabricated video alleging that ballots in Hamburg were destroyed to remove the AfD — which the German government later formally attributed to the GRU-backed Storm-1516 operation, describing it as an attempt to influence the 2025 federal election and destabilize the country.