Greek Police

There is a quirk in the Greek electoral system which has allowed a peek under the curtain at the voting habits of the country's police (Ελληνική Αστυνομία, Elliniki Astynomia) (1). Greek police officers are registered to vote at the precinct where they work, not at their homes, leading to a concentration of police votes in a few polling stations. Since the populations covered by these stations are quite small, and the results are available on a station-by-stations basis, it is possible to carry out a statistical analysis of the likely effect of these concentrations of police votes. Such techniques include a number of unprovable assumptions and are thus to be treated with some caution; however the results, published for both the recent elections by the left-leaning newspaper To Vima ("Tribune"), make interesting reading. (A much more detailed look at the figures can be found here.)

Sophisticated techniques of the modern Greek police service.

According to calculations based on the votes in a number of Athens polling stations, about half of policemen are voting for Golden Dawn (Χρυσή Αυγή, Chrysi Avgi), the unreconstructed fascists whose suddenly increased vote gained them around 20 seats in both elections. It shouldn't perhaps be surprising that policemen are attracted to politicians who offer a police state, especially in Greece where there remains a fund of goodwill in the force towards the regime of the colonels, who ruled Greece from 1967-74, a regime to which Chrysi Avgi also have ideological connections. Greece has for generations been plagued by conflict between hard left and hard right, and the return of this in these straitened times is depressing but far from unexpected.

Golden Dawn spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris demonstrates his commitment to free and open debate

What is also fascinating is that a similar exercise carried out by a Cretan news site, using figures for polling stations serving prisons, suggested that a similar effect can be seen in jails. Of course in that case, it is not possible to separate out the votes of guards and inmates.... but this may indeed be a point upon which lawbreakers and law enforcers alike share some common ground ;)

 It's SO not a swastika :/

Notes
(1) The modern national police force was created in 1984 by the merger of city police forces (Αστυνομία Πόλεων, Astynomia Poleon) with the paramilitary gendarmerie (Χωροφυλακή, Chorofylaki). The gendarmerie in particular opposed this rationalisation. 

 EDIT: Music link retired 2/1/2013