The vote must be received by the district electoral authority by 5 p.m. on October 9. Anyone who wants to apply for an absentee ballot for the federal presidential election should do so in the next few days.
Eligible voters who want to cast their ballots in the presidential election by postal vote but do not yet have a ballot card should hurry up. If you want to have the absentee ballot sent by post, the application period ends in the middle of the week. Online ordering via the “Digital Office” app or the website www.oesterreich.gv.at is only possible until Tuesday, on Wednesday the absentee ballot can still be applied for in writing in the conventional way.
If you can pick up the absentee ballot in person at the municipal office, you have until Friday to submit an application orally or in writing. The municipal office or the municipal district office in whose electoral register you are entered is responsible. The application can be sent by post, by fax, if necessary also by e-mail or via the website of the municipality (via https://www.wahlkartenantrag.at) – but the telephone application is prohibited.
Submit your ballot in good time
In any case, absentee ballots must be handed in in good time so that the vote reaches the postal voting authority (printed on the envelope) by the close of voting – Sunday, October 9, 5 p.m. In order not to have to exclude too many voters because they turned in too late, the Ministry of the Interior, in cooperation with the post office, is once more offering a special absentee ballot service: Unlike usual, the mailboxes are emptied once more on Saturday and the absentee ballots are sent to the (printed) district electoral authorities brought. However, this starts at 9 a.m. – by then at the latest, the postal voters must have made their decision and cast in their ballot paper.
Which means that postal voting is also possible for those eligible to vote who have exhausted the application period to the last: You can submit the application in person until Friday, April 22, 12 noon and take the absentee ballot with you or have it picked up by an authorized “courier”. .
More and more postal voters
The postal vote is not counted until one day following the election. So these votes are not included in the overall result – and there will probably be a lot. In the 2019 National Council election, even before the pandemic, almost 20 percent of the votes were cast with absentee ballots. And in the elections during the corona pandemic, postal voting was used even more. In the 2020 Vienna election, almost 44 percent of the votes cast came by voting card. The fact that the postal voters have the last word was already evident in the runoff election for the Federal President in May 2016 (which was then overturned by the Constitutional Court): there was still an FPÖ candidate on election Sunday Norbert Hofer just ahead – but Alexander Van der Bellen fared much better with the postal voters and he was ultimately the winner. In the repeat election, Van der Bellen no longer had to tremble until Monday, when he was first on Sunday.
The absentee ballots handed in in “foreign” constituencies are already included in the federal presidential election on Sunday evening. They can be counted at the point of delivery and do not have to be taken to the “correct” constituency. This is necessary in the National Council elections because mandates are also awarded in the constituencies.
Vote at the polling station with a voting card
In the meantime, absentee ballots can be handed in at federal elections in all polling stations and not only in the polling stations specially set up for this purpose. And the absentee ballots can also be taken directly to the – printed – electoral authority. This before October 9th – and not only personally, but also by a “messenger”. Even on October 9th, a person you trust can still pick them up and hand them in if they go to the polling station themselves. If, contrary to expectations, the person entitled to vote is able to go to “his” polling station himself, this is also permissible. But he absolutely has to take his ballot card with him: Anyone who has received one can no longer vote without it. If you lose it, you don’t get a replacement. This is to prevent an eligible voter from voting more than once. You can only exchange an absentee ballot that has become unusable in the responsible municipal office or municipal district office.
It is almost certainly too late for Austrians living abroad who want to vote by post from outside the country. Because the postal routes for sending and returning the absentee ballot take too long. Your vote must also be with the electoral authority by 5 p.m. on Sunday. Only those who already have an absentee ballot can still send it back (hoping that there is enough time) – or, if they live in the EU or Switzerland, hand it in to an Austrian representative authority on Monday, October 3rd. In non-EU countries, this was only possible until September 30th.
(WHAT)
