State election in Vorarlberg 2014
The state election in Vorarlberg on September 21, 2014 was the 15th election of the Vorarlberg state parliament since 1945. As the five-year term of office of the 29th Vorarlberg state parliament ended in 2014, all 36 members were newly elected.
While the Vorarlberg People's Party suffered a significant drop in votes and the loss of the absolute majority, the Greens were able to significantly increase their share of the vote and thereby gain two seats in the state parliament. The NEOS , which was running for the first time in a state election, were unable to achieve membership in the state parliament with 6.89 percent of the vote and two mandates. The FPÖ and SPÖ both lost slightly, with the SPÖ Vorarlberg falling below ten percent for the first time in its history.
As a result of the election, for the first time in Vorarlberg's history, there was a black-green coalition government with the ÖVP and the Greens, which was elected as the Wallner II state government on October 15 by the newly constituted state parliament.
initial situation
In the state elections in 2009 , the Vorarlberg People's Party was able to defend its absolute majority of votes and mandates in the state parliament as the strongest party, while the SPÖ Vorarlberg, the biggest loser in the election, suffered its worst nationwide result of all time. The Vorarlberg Freedom Party recorded the largest increase in votes and mandates in 2009 , doubling their share of the vote. With slight gains, the Greens became the third strongest party, while the SPÖ only landed fourth for the first time.
Due to a falling out between the two former governing parties ÖVP and FPÖ, the Vorarlberg People's Party with Governor Herbert Sausgruber formed a sole government for the first time after the state elections in 2009 ( Landesregierung Sausgruber IV ). After a little more than two years, Herbert Sausgruber resigned in the state parliament session on December 7, 2011 and handed over the office of governor to his party colleague and previous governor Markus Wallner , who then led the People's Party as governor and subsequently as the top candidate in the 2014 state elections .
Election campaign
The Vorarlberg election campaign in 2014 was generally described as uneventful by the media. The ÖVP was first run as the top candidate by Markus Wallner . The People's Party had been predicted that the absolute majority would be lost in the run-up to the election. The NEOS, which were competing for the first time, wanted to be partly responsible for this, and their top candidate declared that she wanted to break the "ÖVP system". Polls before the election predicted a neck-to-neck race between NEOS, the Greens and the Social Democrats for third place. Garden gnomes instead of posters were part of the SPÖ's campaign strategy; the loss of several hundred of these electoral dwarfs led to the Vorarlberg election campaign being mentioned in international media.
A secure second place in the election was predicted for the FPÖ, which overall led a less polarizing election campaign compared to the previous state election . In 2009, FPÖ top candidate Dieter Egger caused a stir with a controversial “Exile Jew” -sager . In the ORF summer talk in August 2014, Governor Wallner had already stated that Egger's statement was still in the room, and that Egger had to clarify this before working with the FPÖ again. The incident was also an emotional topic in a panel discussion broadcast by ORF Vorarlberg among the top candidates in the 2014 election campaign.
Suffrage
For the election of the Vorarlberg state parliament in 2014, whoever was automatically entitled to vote
- had reached at least the age of 16 on election day, September 21, 2014,
- his main residence at the reference date, June 24, 2014 had in Vorarlberg and the Austrian citizenship had
- and was not excluded from the right to vote (explicitly pronounced by the court for certain criminal convictions in individual cases).
In addition, Vorarlbergers from abroad who had registered in the electoral register were entitled to vote on application. This affected people who had moved their main residence directly from Vorarlberg to another country and who were still holders of Austrian citizenship. However, the prerequisite was that the main residence was still abroad as of June 24, 2014 and the relocation of the residence was not more than ten years ago.
According to the official announcement of the state electoral authority, a total of 267,104 voters were entitled to vote in the state elections in 2014. Of these, 25,030 people applied for a voting card by September 19, the last possible day for an application, in order to be able to vote by postal vote or at a different polling station than the one actually intended.
Innovations in the right to vote
The most important innovation in the state electoral law affecting the state elections in 2014 was the unanimous decision of the state parliament parties to upgrade the preferential votes in March 2014 . So far, each candidate has been assigned 16 points for each preferred vote, which has been added to the total of the points that he received based on his list ranking. The final ranking of the candidates for receiving a state parliament mandate finally resulted from the sum of preference votes and list ranking points.
The number of voting points per preferential vote was doubled to 32 with the strengthening of the preferential votes.In addition, in the state elections in 2014, for the first time, voters were able to give five instead of three preferential votes for candidates of the elected party. Both changes resulted in a stronger influence of the voters on the final ranking of the candidates.
Another change in the electoral law concerned the exclusion of persons who had committed criminal offenses from voting. So far, all over Austria people who had been sentenced to at least one year in prison were automatically excluded from the right to vote. According to a ruling by the European Court of Human Rights , such an exclusion of voting rights can no longer be applied across the board, which is why the relevant laws had to be changed. According to the new regulation, the competent court had to explicitly pronounce the exclusion from the right to vote in the judgment so that it is valid. In addition, such an exclusion may only be imposed in the case of convictions to at least five years' unconditional imprisonment or in the case of special offenses which are punishable by at least one year of unconditional imprisonment.
There was also an essential change in voting rights in the area of voting cards. The eight-day grace period for the electoral authorities to receive the voting cards sent by post, which had previously made it possible for “tactical voting” - that is, the (illegal) casting of votes even after the preliminary election results had been announced - has been deleted. Voting cards now had to be received by the electoral authority at the latest by the closing of the last polling station in the municipality in order to be counted as votes cast.
Constituencies and districts
Elections were made in all 96 municipalities, which were divided into four electoral districts. These electoral districts corresponded to the administrative districts of Bludenz ( constituency Bludenz ), Bregenz ( constituency Bregenz ), Dornbirn ( constituency Dornbirn ) and Feldkirch ( constituency Feldkirch ).
As a rule, an electoral district corresponded to one municipality. Within a municipality, however, several electoral districts with corresponding district election authorities could also be set up by resolution of the municipal electoral authority. For example , a total of 40 district electoral authorities were set up in the largest municipality in the country, the city of Dornbirn . Smaller communities, such as Dünserberg or Röns , on the other hand, managed with just one electoral district.
Parties available for election
Parties already represented in the state parliament
| Parties in the state elections in 2014 | ||
|---|---|---|
|
Governor Markus Wallner - Vorarlberg People's Party |
VP |
|
Vorarlberg Freedom Party - FPÖ | FPÖ |
|
The Greens - Green Alternative Vorarlberg |
GREEN |
|
Michael Ritsch - Vorarlberg Social Democrats |
SPÖ |
|
NEOS Vorarlberg | NEOS |
|
Pirate party | PIRATE |
|
Men's party for fair cooperation | M. |
| WIR - platform for families | WE | |
|
Christian Party of Austria | CPÖ |
|
Party names and order of the parties according to Determination by the state electoral authority |
||
All parties previously represented in the Vorarlberg state parliament announced at an early stage that they also wanted to stand for election in the 2014 state elections. The Vorarlberg People's Party stood for the first time with Governor Markus Wallner as the top candidate in the election, the Vorarlberg Freedom Party relied on their party chairman Dieter Egger as the top candidate , as in 2009 . As in 2009, Johannes Rauch ran for Green Vorarlberg and Michael Ritsch for SPÖ Vorarlberg as top candidates.
Parties not yet represented in the state parliament
Of the parties not yet represented in the state parliament, the first to announce was NEOS - Das Neue Österreich und Liberales Forum , a liberal party founded in 2012, largely by Matthias Strolz from Vorarlberg , which was able to move into the National Council in the 2013 National Council elections in Austria To run for state elections. The party then nominated Sabine Scheffknecht , the previous state spokeswoman, as the top candidate in a multi-stage election process, which had to be changed after allegations of manipulation .
The Pirate Party , the Men's Party , the Christian Party of Austria , Die Buntkarierten and WIR - Platform for Families also announced a planned candidacy. What all these parties not yet represented in the state parliament had in common was that for a successful candidacy they had to collect at least 100 declarations of support in each constituency in which they stood. If a party received at least 100 declarations of support in each of the four electoral districts, the party could also propose a state election. With the exception of Die Buntkarierte , who did not submit their nominations by the deadline and were therefore not admitted to the state elections, all those parties that had not previously been represented in the state parliament and had announced a candidacy managed to run in all electoral districts and thus also nationwide.
In April 2014, Christoph Hagen , the regional chairman of the Stronach team for Vorarlberg , announced that the Stronach team, which is represented in the Austrian National Council, would not take part in the state elections. The parties BZÖ , wir-gemeinsam.at , Die Gsiberger and Kiebitz , who had still stood in the state elections in 2009, also did not stand for this election. The people of Gsiberger and the VAU today , which belongs to them and who had stood independently in 2004, declared that they wanted to concentrate on the municipal council elections in 2015 .
Election result
| Results 2014 | Results 2009 | Differences | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eligible voters | 267.104 | 261,132 | + 5,972 | ||||||
| voter turnout | 64.31% | 68.44% | - 4.13% | ||||||
| be right | % | Mand. | be right | % | Mand. | be right | % | Mand. | |
| Votes cast | 171,765 | 178.711 | - 6,946 | ||||||
| Of which voting cards | 21.306 | 12.40% | 15,143 | 8.47% | + 6,163 | + 3.93% | |||
| Invalid | 1,396 | 0.81% | 1,297 | 0.73% | + 99 | + 0.08% | |||
| Valid | 170.369 | 99.19% | 177.414 | 99.27% | - 7,045 | - 0.08% | |||
| Party 1 | |||||||||
| VP | 71.205 | 41.79% | 16 | 90.108 | 50.79% | 20th | - 18,903 | - 9.00% | - 4th |
| FPÖ | 39,892 | 23.42% | 9 | 44,562 | 25.12% | 9 | - 4,670 | - 1.70% | 0 |
| GREEN | 29,193 | 17.14% | 6th | 18,763 | 10.58% | 4th | + 10,430 | + 6.56% | + 2 |
| SPÖ | 14,948 | 8.77% | 3 | 17,779 | 10.02% | 3 | - 2,831 | - 1.25% | 0 |
| NEOS | 11,743 | 6.89% | 2 | not running | |||||
| PIRATE | 795 | 0.47% | 0 | not running | |||||
| M. | 672 | 0.39% | 0 | not running | |||||
| WE | 1,088 | 0.64% | 0 | not running | |||||
| CPÖ | 833 | 0.49% | 0 | not running | |||||
| total | 100.00% | 36 | |||||||
1 Party names as abbreviations according to the official election proposal
The percentages in the “Result” columns in the 3 table sections relate to different aggregates: The number of all eligible voters / the votes cast / the valid votes. The percentages under “Differences”, however, are the arithmetic difference between the two percentages of the results in the same line.
Streams of voters
Following the state election, the social research institute SORA carried out a detailed analysis of the voter flow on behalf of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation . This showed that two out of three voters remained loyal to the People's Party in the election compared to 2009. The biggest losses occurred with around 10,000 voters to the FPÖ, followed by 9,000 voters, who this time voted for the Greens. The People's Party won the most votes from the camp of former FPÖ voters, of whom around 4,000 voted for the People's Party in 2014. Around 5,000 ÖVP voters from 2009 did not vote in 2012 and thus became non-voters .
The FPÖ was able to get 57% of its voters to vote for the FPÖ again in 2009 and lost the most votes, around 9,000, due to voters staying away from the ballot box. In the case of the Greens, voter loyalty was very similar to that of the People's Party, around 66%. Most of the voters (approx. 3,000) lost the Greens to the non-voters, they were able to gain the most with former voters of the People's Party (approx. 9,000). In the SPÖ, 47% of voters in 2009 voted again in a social democratic way, while around 5,000 former SPÖ voters did not vote.
The electorate of the NEOS, which entered the Vorarlberg state parliament for the first time, was surprisingly composed. While before the election it was assumed that standing for NEOS would cost the People's Party numerous votes, only 3,000 NEOS voters came from the People's Party. 1,000 voters each came from the FPÖ and the Greens, and the largest proportion - around 5,000 - were former non-voters.
Mandate distribution
The distribution of the state parliament mandates to the individual parties takes place in Vorarlberg according to the Hagenbach-Bischoff process . First, a number of votes is determined by dividing the total number of votes cast in the constituency by the mandates to be awarded there (plus one). This number of votes is then used to determine how often the number of votes is included in the number of votes allotted to the parties. The result is rounded down to a whole number and gives the number of constituency mandates of the individual parties. The remaining votes of each party are converted into mandates at the state level in a second preliminary investigation according to the same principle.
| Bludenz constituency | Bregenz constituency | Dornbirn constituency | Feldkirch constituency | Second preliminary investigation | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mandataries | AZ | Mandataries | AZ | Mandataries | AZ | Mandataries | AZ | Mandataries | AZ | |
| VP |
Christian Gantner Josef Türtscher Monika Vonier |
3 |
Roland Breakfast Bernadette Mennel a Karlheinz Rüdisser a Martina Rüscher Erich Schwärzler a |
5 |
Christian Bernhard a Albertshofer Thomas Winsauer |
3 |
Werner Huber Gabriele Nussbaumer Harald Sonderegger Markus Wallner a |
4th | Julian Fassler | 1 |
| FPÖ | Joachim Weixlbaumer | 1 |
Hubert Kinz Cornelia Michalke |
2 |
Christoph Waibel Ernst Hagen |
2 |
Daniel Allgäuer Dieter Egger |
2 |
Christof Bitschi Nicole Hosp |
2 |
| GREEN | 0 |
Adi Gross Katharina Wiesflecker a |
2 | Vahide Aydın | 1 |
John Rauch a Nina Tomaselli |
2 | Daniel Zadra | 1 | |
| SPÖ | 0 | Michael Ritsch | 1 | 0 | 0 |
Reinhold Einwallner Gabriele Sprickler-Falschlunger |
2 | |||
| NEOS | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Martina Pointner Sabine Scheffknecht |
2 | ||||
a After the election to the state government in the first state parliament session, the state parliament mandate is waived.
Preferential votes
In the 2015 state elections, it was possible for the first time to give five preferential votes per voter, with a maximum of two preferential votes per candidate. These preferential votes could only be given to candidates on the district list of the party that was elected. In addition, a new preferential voting system ensured that the importance of these preferential votes was massively increased - which resulted in some changes in the list of candidates and in the allocation of seats.
For example, the previous first vice- president of the state parliament, Heinz Peter Ritter, of the ÖVP in the Bludenz constituency, lost his mandate even though he was in second place on the list, just behind the nationwide top candidate Markus Wallner. Both Monika Vonier and Christian Gantner and Josef Türtscher but could reach more preferential votes as a knight in the electoral district Bludenz and got the three ÖVP mandates in this district. In constituency Dornbirn managed his party colleague in the same way Daniel Stein Hofer to get in the district and in the seventh list position from one of the three ÖVP Mandates Bregenz managed this too Martina Rüscher that has been pre-aligned by the eighth list seat. At the FPÖ and the Greens, too , candidates who were ranked lower in the rankings, Christoph Waibel and Vahide Aydın , overtook their colleagues with preferential votes and received the corresponding basic mandates from their parties. In the Feldkirch constituency , Werner Huber from the People's Party was able to overtake his party colleague Barbara Schöbi-Fink with preferential votes, but both ultimately moved into the state parliament on the basis of basic mandates from the VP in the Feldkirch district.
The leading candidate of the Vorarlberg People's Party and incumbent Governor Markus Wallner received by far the most preferential votes nationwide. He ran as a top candidate in all four electoral districts and was therefore - like the top candidates of the other parties - unlike the other candidates in his party, eligible for election in all electoral districts. Wallner received a total of 90,250 preferential votes. The second most preferential votes, 47,726, was Dieter Egger, the top candidate of the Freedom Party. The top candidates of the Greens, Johannes Rauch, and the SPÖ, Michael Ritsch achieved 21,028 and 14,951 preferential votes, respectively. The state-wide top candidate of NEOS, Sabine Scheffknecht, received 6,349 preferential votes and thus fewer than the ÖVP state councilors Erich Schwärzler (9,687 in the Bregenz district) and Karlheinz Rüdisser (7,943 in the Bregenz district) had achieved in a single electoral district.
Effects
For the second time after the state elections in 1999 , the Vorarlberg People's Party was unable to achieve an absolute majority of votes or mandates and was thus forced to enter a coalition government. In mathematical terms, coalitions with the FPÖ, the Greens or the SPÖ would have been possible. However, it soon became apparent after the exploratory talks began that the ÖVP preferred a coalition with the Greens. In the new state government of Wallner II , the Greens then occupied two state council posts in Johannes Rauch and Katharina Wiesflecker . In the state parliament, the black-green coalition thus had a majority of 22 out of 36 seats after the election.
Web links
- Detailed follow-up of the 2014 state elections by the regional statistical office of the Vorarlberg state government ( memento from August 16, 2017 in the Internet Archive )
- Information on state elections on the Vorarlberg website.
- Election analysis of the state elections Vorarlberg 2014 by the institutes SORA and ISA on behalf of ORF.
- Summary of election polls on neuwal.com .
Individual evidence
- ^ First black-green state government sworn in. In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk , October 15, 2014, accessed on March 23, 2016 .
- ↑ The low- event election campaign in Vorarlberg is drawing to a close. In: Vorarlberg Online . Russmedia , September 12, 2014, accessed September 18, 2014 .
- ↑ Wallner: "Exiled Jew-Sager stands in the room". In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk , August 7, 2014, accessed on November 2, 2014 .
- ↑ Emotional discussion on the state election. In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk, September 14, 2014, accessed on September 18, 2014 .
- ↑ 25,000 Vorarlberg residents vote with a voting card. In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk, September 20, 2014, accessed on September 20, 2014 .
- ↑ a b Preferred votes: More influence for the voters. In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk, January 17, 2014, accessed on July 27, 2014 .
- ↑ Polling stations and election times ( memento from November 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the state election authority.
- ↑ Who is running in the state elections in 2014? ( Memento from November 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) List of parties on the website of the state election authority.
- ↑ a b Announcement of the state and district election proposals for the state elections to be held on September 21, 2014 ( Memento of November 27, 2017 in the Internet Archive ). Official announcement of all parties and their candidates by the state election authority (LGBl. 31/2014).
- ↑ Neos want to compete in Vorarlberg's election. In: derStandard.at . STANDARD Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, December 17, 2013, accessed on April 9, 2014 .
- ↑ Female dual leadership at NEOS. In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk, June 28, 2014, accessed on June 29, 2014 .
- ↑ a b Small parties collect the last signatures. In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk, July 28, 2014, accessed on July 28, 2014 .
- ↑ Team Stronach does not run in state elections. In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk, April 9, 2014, accessed on April 9, 2014 .
- ^ Province of Vorarlberg: Official final result of the state election 2014 ; Website of the state election authority, accessed on October 1, 2014.
- ^ SORA Institute for Social Research and Analysis: Voter flow analysis, Landtag election Vorarlberg 2014 ; SORA website, accessed on April 15, 2015.
- ↑ Announcement of the distribution of mandates on the website of the state election authority ( Memento from November 28, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Preferred votes: Ritter loses state parliament mandate. In: ORF Vorarlberg. Österreichischer Rundfunk, September 23, 2014, accessed on April 22, 2015 .
- ↑ Preferred votes: Slight shifts. In: Vorarlberg Online . Russmedia , September 23, 2014, accessed April 22, 2015 .
- ↑ Lucian Mayringer: Vorarlberg: Signals for black-green. In: Upper Austrian news . September 23, 2014, accessed March 23, 2016 .
