State election (Vorarlberg)

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Vorarlberg state coat of arms

In the Austrian state of Vorarlberg , elections to the state parliament take place every five years . The election is regulated by the Act on the Procedure for Elections to the Landtag , or Landtag Election Act for short.

Local investigation

The 4 constituencies in Vorarlberg (congruent with the administrative districts ).

Constituencies

In the elections to the Vorarlberg state parliament , each political district forms an electoral district. The state area is divided into the four electoral districts Bludenz , Bregenz , Dornbirn and Feldkirch . After each census , the number of citizens - not those eligible to vote - is divided by the number of seats in the state parliament (36). The result is what is known as the ratio. Finally, the number of citizens living in a constituency is divided by the ratio in order to determine the mandates to which the constituency is entitled. The remaining mandates are assigned to the constituencies, taking into account the size of the decimal places. If the decimal places are identical in two or more constituencies, the lot decides. If a redistribution of mandates becomes necessary after a census, this must be regulated by the state government by ordinance .

Electoral district

Each municipality forms at least one electoral district; In communities with more than a thousand citizens, additional districts can also be set up. Special electoral districts are set up for people who are in sanatoriums or nursing homes on election day. The municipal electoral authority has to regulate the division of the electoral districts; if there are several electoral districts, voting with voting cards must be made possible in at least one district.

Electoral authorities

structure

The Landtag Election Act stipulates in Section 7 (1) that "electoral authorities [...] are to be appointed to conduct and conduct the elections". The electoral authorities consist of a chairman, his deputy and the assessors. Only those persons who are entitled to vote in the area for which the electoral authority is appointed (district, municipality , district , state ) may be appointed to the electoral authority. The mayor (or a deputy appointed by him) is the chairman of the municipal election authority ; he appoints his deputy and the assessors, as well as the chairmen, the deputies and the assessors of the district election authorities in his municipality. The district electoral authorities consist of the district captain (or a deputy appointed by him) as chairman and nine assessors. The state electoral authority consists of the governor (or a deputy appointed by him), a judge and nine other assessors.

Order

The electoral authorities are to be appointed no later than eight weeks after the deadline and remain in office until they are re-appointed after the announcement of the next election to the state parliament . The state government has to appoint the judge and his substitute member from among the judges of the district of the Feldkirch regional court after hearing the president of the Feldkirch regional court . The other assessors and substitute members of the electoral authorities are to be appointed based on the proposals of the parties represented in the state parliament according to the number of votes cast for these parties in the last election to the state parliament . The appointment of assessors and substitute members to the state electoral authority shall be based on the proportion of votes in the entire country, in district election authorities the proportion of votes in the relevant electoral districts and in community and district election authorities on the proportions of votes in the communities concerned. The state government has to appoint the assessors of the state electoral authority, the assessors of the district election authorities to the state election authority. The assessors of the municipality and district election authorities are to be appointed by the district election authorities. The names of the members of the state electoral authority and the district election authorities are to be published in the official gazette for the state of Vorarlberg , the names of the members of the municipality and district election authorities by posting on the official notice board of the respective municipalities.

Right to vote and eligibility

Section 5 (1) of the State Election Act determines the same and personal right to vote :

"Every eligible voter only has one vote. He can run an election
give the party he elects up to three preferential votes. The
The right to vote is [..] to be exercised personally. "

For Parliament is entitled to vote, who is the country citizens in the date of the election, is not disqualified from voting and 16 years of age has completed on election day at the latest. A citizen is someone who is an Austrian citizen and had his or her normal place of residence in the state area on the reference date. Anyone entitled to vote who has reached the age of 18 on election day at the latest can be elected.

Voting and investigation procedures

The district electoral authorities forward the voting cards accordingly to the other district electoral authorities and first determine the number of valid and invalid votes cast as well as the preferential votes.

First preliminary investigation

Finally, the mandates to be awarded in the electoral district are to be distributed among the parties by the district electoral authority with the help of the number of votes (first investigation). The number of elections is found by dividing the total number of valid votes cast for the constituency by the number of seats assigned to the constituency, increased by one. The number obtained in this way and, in any case, to be increased to the next whole number is the elective number. Then each party receives as many mandates as the number of votes included in its party total. This form of distribution is the Hagenbach-Bischoff method .

Second preliminary investigation

"Mandates that cannot be awarded within the electoral district in this distribution (remaining mandates), as well as party votes whose number is insufficient for the allocation of one or another mandate (remaining votes), are to be taken into account in the second preliminary investigation" (§56 para. 3 State election law). The mandates allotted to a party are to be assigned to the candidates of this party in the order of the size of the number of voting points they have achieved. An electoral candidate who has not already been assigned a mandate according to this provision will receive a mandate (preferential vote mandate) if the number of his preferential votes is greater than that of the other candidates of his party and is at least as large as if 12% of the voters have two preferential votes would have given.

See also

swell