Where does the counting of votes take place and can you watch it?
No, voters are not allowed to watch the counting, which takes place at the polling station. The National Council election regulations stipulate that the polling station must be closed for counting. Only members of the electoral authority (electing officers, assessors), auxiliary bodies, persons of trust and election witnesses from the parties – as well as any election observers from the OSCE – are allowed to attend.
When can you find out the first numbers?
The first projections can be expected at 5 p.m., when the last polling stations have closed. Many polling stations, especially in rural areas, close earlier, but their results are only allowed to be published after the election closes. The Constitutional Court also insisted on this: even passing it on to the media and opinion research institutes before the end of the election is now strictly forbidden by the electoral authorities.
When will there be a preliminary overall result?
After the election closes, the votes will be counted and published as soon as the result is available. For the first time – thanks to the 2023 electoral law reform – the majority of postal votes in a National Council election will be counted on Sunday. Another part follows on Monday, a smaller one on Thursday.
Due to this change, it is difficult to estimate when the provisional overall result will be available on Sunday evening. The electoral authority in the Ministry of the Interior is expecting the late evening hours, probably not before 11 p.m., but it could possibly take longer.
What is the difference between “trend” and “projection”?
To create a “trend”, all districts/communes/districts/constituencies/states counted up to that point are added together. If there are not a lot of results available (and initially mainly from small communities), it is difficult to draw any conclusions about the overall result. This is exactly what is being attempted in projections – using complex models based on developments in selected small communities to estimate how the election will turn out across Austria.
When will the counting of votes be completed?
Strictly speaking, only on Thursday, because that’s when the last votes will be counted, namely those that were cast with absentee ballots or postal votes on September 29th in “foreign” constituencies. Nevertheless, the result on Monday will be relatively accurate, after all, the majority of votes will be counted on election day itself. In addition to those handed in at the polling stations, there are also those that arrived at the responsible district election authorities by midday on Friday before the election Sunday and also those voting cards that were handed in directly to the municipality immediately after they were issued (“personal pre-election day”). This is made possible by the 2023 electoral law reform, which came into force this year.
What is the “four percent hurdle” or a basic mandate?
A campaigning party needs at least four percent of the vote to enter the National Council – or a direct mandate in a constituency. To date, no party has achieved the latter in the Second Republic.
