Municipal council and mayoral elections in Vorarlberg 2010
In the municipal council and mayoral elections in Vorarlberg on March 14, 2010 , the municipal representative bodies of all 96 municipalities in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg were newly elected. This concerned both the municipal council , which is the highest body of the municipal administration, as well as the office of the mayor , who acts as the municipality leader and could be directly elected in many municipalities.
Suffrage
For the election of the municipal council and the mayor in 2010, who was actively eligible to vote
- on the election day, March 14, 2010, at least 16 years of age,
- his main residence at the reference date, 28 December 2009 had in Vorarlberg and the Austrian citizenship or the citizenship of a Member State of the European Union had
- and was not excluded from the right to vote (automatically by sentencing to more than one year imprisonment or in the case of a stay of less than one year, if it is obvious that this is only temporary).
In addition, anyone from Vorarlberg who met the requirements for the right to vote and was 18 years of age could be elected. In addition, in order to be elected mayor of a municipality it was necessary to be a citizen of the municipality, i.e. an Austrian citizen with main residence in the respective municipality.
Innovations in the right to vote
For the first time in a local election in Vorarlberg in 2010 it was possible for 16 and 17 year olds to vote. Due to a legal change in the federal electoral law, the state and municipal election laws had to be amended accordingly, which resulted in the voting age being reduced to 16 years. In addition, in this municipal election it was possible for the first time without giving reasons to cast one's vote by postal vote, which is also due to a change in federal electoral law.
Electoral systems
In most municipalities in the country, the municipal council was elected by list and the mayor was elected directly. In the municipal council and mayoral elections in 2010, 65 of 96 municipalities carried out the election in this way. In addition, there were two other electoral procedures that were used as Vorarlberger Unikum.
- List election with direct mayor election
In the list election with direct mayor election, parties or free lists submit nominations for the municipal council and for the office of mayor. The voters can then cast one vote for a list or party at the municipal council and one vote for the election of the mayor. In addition, 5 preferential votes can be given to the chosen list of the municipal council. In the mayoral election, the voters do not have to forcibly give their vote to the candidate from the list or party elected by the municipal council ( vote splitting ).
The possibility of direct election of the mayor has only existed in Vorarlberg since the 1999 amendment to the electoral law. It was first used in the municipal council and mayor elections in 2000.
- List selection (with area code)
When voting on a list, the voters choose the new municipal council from prepared lists. This voting system is often used in conjunction with an area code. Either an empty ballot is sent to all eligible voters in the municipality, on which they can enter those people who in their opinion should appear on the list, or the parties send their lists to the citizens, who then rank them in advance of the election can make within this. In the subsequent election, those entitled to vote again have the opportunity to change their ranking on the lists by giving preferential votes. In the case of pure list voting, the members of the newly elected municipal council then determine the mayor of the municipality from among their number. A pure list election was carried out in 2010 in 17 Vorarlberg municipalities.
- Majority vote
In principle, the municipal council in Vorarlberg is to be carried out according to proportional representation. If, however, no party stands for election in a municipality six weeks before the election day at the latest, the election can be carried out as a majority vote. Some, especially smaller, municipalities practice so-called majority voting, in which each eligible voter can indicate a maximum of twice as many names (of passive voters in this municipality ) as there are places in the municipal council. Those with the highest number of votes are then considered elected. The newly elected community representatives then elect the new mayor from among their number in their first meeting.
This procedure, which is used in Vorarlberg as the only Austrian federal state, is laid down in the 9th section of the Vorarlberg Municipal Election Act under the name “Elections to the municipal council in the absence of nominations”. The majority vote was overturned as unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court in 1984 , but reintroduced in 2000 following an amendment to the Federal Constitutional Law. In 2010 an election to the municipal council was held in 14 municipalities in the absence of nominations.
Results
Although the state election authority did not publish any official nationwide party results, a result can be assumed based on a calculation by the ÖVP (see right).
The party results contain the results achieved by party-affiliated lists. A list is accepted as affiliated with the party if the top candidates on this list include several prominent party members or if this party is massively supported by the respective state party. In many small communities, unit lists close to the ÖVP traditionally appear. Overall, the ÖVP was able to maintain its supremacy in Vorarlberg and in some cases even expand it. The greatest success for the People's Party on this move was Kurt Fischer's acquisition of the mayor's office in the market town of Lustenau , where the FPÖ had previously appointed the mayor for 50 years. In addition, the mayor's office in Mittelberg was won by the FPÖ and that in St. Gallenkirch by the SPÖ . The election result was also a success for the FPÖ. Although the Freedom Party did not do quite as well as had been forecast, they were able to record the highest increase in votes nationwide. In the municipal council and mayoral elections in 2010, the SPÖ continued its downward trend, which had already become clear in the regional elections in Vorarlberg in 2009 , and lost 66 seats in the state's municipal councils in addition to one mayor. The Greens were able to gain slightly in the elections and performed particularly well in those communities in which Green Lists stood for election for the first time, such as in Lochau and Altach .
The mayoral election in three municipalities did not provide a clear outcome in the first ballot. In Göfis , Hörbranz and Thuringia , a runoff election through the mayor's office had to be held on March 28th. In all three municipalities, the candidates close to the ÖVP won against their challengers. The incumbent mayors remained in office in Göfis and Hörbranz, while in Thuringia the ÖVP candidate Harald Witwer replaced the previous incumbent Berno Witwer from the list of citizens as head of the municipality.
Web links
- Election summary (PDF; 389 kB) of the State Office for Statistics in the Office of the Vorarlberg State Government.
- Mayor election results - direct election 2010 on the website of the Vorarlberg state government.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c ORF Vorarlberg: Election systems for municipal elections are in place . Article of February 21, 2010.
- ^ ORF Vorarlberg: Vorarlberg remains black, SPÖ loses . Article of March 14, 2010.
- ^ ORF Vorarlberg: Winner election: two incumbents and a new one . Article of March 28, 2010.
