2024-09-08 09:29:27
In three weeks, Austria will elect a new National Council. It is already possible to cast your vote: by postal vote. What is new is that this is now possible across Austria using a voting card directly at every municipality, as the head of the election department in the Ministry of the Interior, Gregor Wenda, explained in an APA interview. Another new feature is that most postal votes (as in the EU elections) will be counted on Sunday.
The 2023 electoral reform, which came into force on January 1 of this year, was used for the first time in the EU elections on June 9. The National Council elections on September 29 are the second nationwide ballot in which the reforms will be applied.
One of the most striking changes is the possibility of casting your vote by post when you pick up your voting card – provided you pick up the voting card in person from the municipality (or the magistrate’s office) instead of having it sent to you. You can cast your vote by post on site and return the completed postal voting envelope there. This is now possible “in every municipality in Austria, not just in statutory cities as it used to be,” said Wenda. “That means that every municipality has a polling booth or a place where I can cast my vote. This must also be barrier-free.”
Otherwise, you can still vote using your voting card in another way, as you have done before: “The voting card comes to your home by post or I can take it home with me from the municipality,” said Wenda. “After you have applied, you can then vote by mail at some point in the next few weeks. But you have to make sure that the voting card is returned to the electoral authority in time for election day.”
As before, it is possible to use the voting card on election day to either go to another (“foreign”) polling station or to be visited by a “flying electoral commission” – “if, for example, I cannot go anywhere due to mobility restrictions”. The voting card is a “multifunctional instrument” that is intended “if someone cannot vote on election day in the polling station where he or she is registered in the electoral register”, says Wenda.
You can apply for a voting card since the election announcement: either directly at the municipality or the magistrate’s office, as mentioned above, but the application can also be made in writing or electronically, for example using the electronic signature “ID Austria” (information: https://www.oesterreich.gv.at/id-austria.html). Once you are registered, you can order the voting card via the app and it will then be sent to you by post (thanks to verification via ID Austria, a registered letter is not necessary).
“Individual municipalities offer a registered mail service despite this ID Austria application,” Wenda said, referring to regional differences and also options for electronic application without ID Austria. There are also other platforms for application, such as “However, some larger cities and municipalities also offer such an online service,” said Wenda.
If you have applied for a voting card, you can also check online where the card is currently located: www.bmi.gv.at/selbstauskunft you can see the status – also using ID Austria. This is also an innovation of the last electoral reform. Specifically, it is clear which authority issued the card and whether the card has already been returned to the authority – however, the “self-disclosure” does not represent “real tracking”, says Wenda.
You have until just before election day to apply for a voting card: “In writing, you can apply until the Wednesday before election day, i.e. until 25 September at midnight. Orally – that is, by coming in person – you can still do it until 12 noon on Friday,” says Wenda. You always have to apply for a voting card yourself, but an authorized person can pick it up. More information about voting with voting cards is available online at
The reform also brought improvements for people with disabilities, which were already in place for the EU elections: for the first time, barrier-free polling stations are mandatory in every building. Information is also available in easy-to-read language. For blind or visually impaired people, there is also a template for the voting card with Braille inscription.
Where you can vote without a voting card – in the traditional way at “your” polling station – can be found in the official election information that has already been sent. “The opening times, the exact address, even with geocoding, or information on accessibility” can be found about a week before the election via a complete list of all polling stations on the BMI website, says Wenda. The Federal Ministry of the Interior has also had a hotline since the end of August where you can get information about the election. The call center is available from Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and the last day the hotline is open is the Saturday before the election. The hotline can be reached free of charge from within Germany on 0800 202220; from abroad on +43 1 53126 2700.
According to Wenda, it is not possible to say exactly when the election results will be available on Sunday evening after the polls close at 5 p.m. “It is difficult to judge because we do not have any experience yet,” said Wenda, referring to the new circumstances resulting from the electoral reform, which means that a large proportion of the voting cards will be counted on Sunday. “The only experience we have is this year’s European elections, where the results were not available until just before 11 p.m.” This made no difference to the EU elections, of course, because due to the EU-wide regulations, no results could be published before 11 p.m. anyway, while for the National Council elections, all results available up to that point can be published from 5 p.m.
“It can be assumed that it will be in the late evening hours again, among other things because in the National Council elections, preferential votes will have to be counted at three levels” – in contrast to the EU election, where this is only the case with a nationwide list. It will also “possibly be possible for more votes to be counted” because voter turnout is “typically” higher in National Council elections.
The final result, including all ballot papers, will not be available until Thursday, October 3, because they will be counted in three tranches. All postal votes that arrive by around Friday lunchtime will be forwarded to the local electoral authority responsible and then counted on Sunday. All ballot papers that arrive later at the district electoral authority or that were submitted for postal voting at a polling station on election day will be sent to the district electoral authority on Monday and will then be counted there – “if it is your own regional constituency that is affected.” If the votes are from another regional constituency, these ballot papers will be counted on Thursday during the “state electoral authority round.”
The reason for this procedure is to preserve the secrecy of the ballot, because there are 39 different ballot papers in the National Council election – one for each regional constituency. “This means that the ballot paper should be returned to where it came from. If, for example, someone in Vorarlberg were to vote with a Vienna ballot paper, the secrecy of the ballot would otherwise possibly be violated in that polling station if there was only one person with such a ballot paper. This is why the ballot paper is returned to the state electoral authority. This process then takes a few days.”
All Austrians aged 16 and over are entitled to vote: “That means I have to celebrate my 16th birthday on election day, that’s the basic principle.” You have to take an ID card with you to the polling station. You can “tick” your party in various ways: “The electoral law shows several ways in which such a valid voting decision can be made,” says Wenda. “The typical case is a cross – or another marking of the circle of the party you want to vote for. But there is also the case where I cross out all the other parties, but of course that has to be clearly visible and not extend into one field.” Even drawings or notes on the ballot paper are permitted – but not on the ballot envelope.
Wenda also referred to the possibility of giving a preferential vote (at three levels: federal, state and regional constituency level). However, it is not possible to vote for a party and give a preferential vote to a candidate from another list. “There is no splitting of votes and the principle applies that the cross for the party trumps the preferential vote, so to speak. That means: Where I have made the cross or other type of marking in the ring for the party, that is predominant. If I have given a preferential vote or several preferential votes for another party, then these preferential votes would be invalid and the party vote would remain.”
1725788830
#Election #Department #postal #voting
