Elections in Vienna

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Elections in Vienna are held regularly every five years in order to elect the municipal council and the district representatives of the 23 districts of Vienna . Other regular elections that are held throughout Austria and thus also in Vienna are the National Council election , the Federal Presidential election (see Federal Presidential Election Act) and the European Parliament election ( European election ).

Election of municipal councils and district representatives

The Vienna City Council, which, due to the dual function of Vienna as a community and state at the same time Parliament is, is elected together with the district councils of the districts of Vienna. The municipal council and district representative elections are carried out on the basis of the provisions of the Vienna City Constitution and the Vienna Municipal Electoral Code.

Eligible voters

According to Art. 95 B-VG , the state parliaments are elected on the basis of the same, direct, personal, free and secret suffrage of male and female citizens entitled to vote according to the state election regulations according to the principles of proportional representation .
All men and women who have reached the age of 16 on the day of the election and on the deadline specified in the announcement are eligible to vote

  1. have Austrian citizenship,
  2. are not excluded from the right to vote and
  3. have their main residence in the municipal area of ​​Vienna.

Since the Vienna City Council also acts as a legislator, Union citizens of other member states are not entitled to vote for it. Passively eligible to vote (eligible) are all men and women who have reached the age of 18 on election day and who meet the other conditions for active voting rights. In the election for the district representation, in addition to the voters for the municipal council, all Union citizens who meet the other conditions for eligibility to vote for the municipal council are also eligible to vote.

Electoral process

Notice of election

The mayor announces the election of the members of the municipal council and the district representatives in the official gazette of the city of Vienna (election announcement). The announcement of the election must contain the day of the election (election day), which must be a Sunday or a public day of rest, and the number of members of the municipal council to be elected in each constituency and the number of members of the district councils to be elected in each municipality district. Furthermore, the deadline is specified in the announcement.

Electoral authorities

The municipal area is divided into 18 constituencies for the municipal council election. These constituencies are:

  • Constituency center - 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th district
  • Inner-West constituency - 7th, 8th and 9th district
  • Leopoldstadt constituency - 2nd district
  • Landstrasse constituency - 3rd district
  • Favorite constituency - 10th district
  • Simmering constituency - 11th district
  • Meidling constituency - 12th district
  • Hietzing constituency - 13th district
  • Penzing constituency - 14th district
  • Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus constituency - 15th district
  • Ottakring constituency - 16th district
  • Hernals constituency - 17th district
  • Währing constituency - 18th district
  • Döbling constituency - 19th district
  • Brigittenau constituency - 20th district
  • Floridsdorf constituency - 21st district
  • Donaustadt constituency - 22nd district
  • Liesing constituency - 23rd district

Each parish is also divided into electoral districts. A district election authority is set up for each electoral district, a district election authority for each municipality and the city election authority for the entire urban area. The city electoral authority consists of the mayor or a permanent representative to be appointed by him as chairman and city returning officer as well as nine assessors. The district electoral authority consists of the head of the magistrate district office as chairman and district returning officer as well as nine assessors. The district election authority consists of the chairman to be appointed by the mayor as district election supervisor and three assessors. The assessors and substitute assessors of the city electoral authority and the district election authorities are appointed by the mayor, those of the district election authorities by the district electoral authority. On the basis of the proposals of the parties, they are divided proportionally according to the votes allotted to the individual parties in the entire municipality at the last election of the municipal council. A party that cannot have assessors due to this division can, if it is represented in the municipal council by at least three members, send a maximum of two confidants to each electoral authority. Each party that is represented by fewer than three or no members in the municipal council can send a maximum of two confidants to each district electoral authority and the city electoral authority, but not to the district election authorities. The confidential counselors take part in the negotiations of the electoral authority without voting rights.
For the constituency center, the district electoral authority for the 5th district takes on tasks such as accepting the nominations, checking whether sufficient declarations of support have been submitted, whether the candidates are passively eligible to vote, determining the number of votes for the distribution of municipal council seats and recording the election results of the first preliminary investigation in a transcript. The district electoral authority for the 9th district takes on these tasks for the inner-west constituency.

Voting

Polling station

There is a polling station for each electoral district. Each polling station is equipped with at least one voting booth, which allows the voting slip to be filled out unobserved.
The voter proves his identity and receives, provided he is entered in the electoral roll of the polling station, an election envelope and an official ballot paper for the election to the municipal council and for the election to the district council. Non-Austrian Union citizens only receive a voting slip for election to the district council. The voting slip is filled in and the voting slip is placed in the voting envelope in the voting booth.
In principle, only one person may enter the voting booth at a time. Disabled voters can, however, be accompanied to the voting booth by someone they trust.

Voting card

Eligible voters who are likely to be prevented from casting their votes in front of the responsible electoral authority on election day can have a voting card issued. There is at least one polling station in every municipality that accepts voting cards.

Postal vote

Voters who have had a voting card issued can also cast their vote by postal vote . For this purpose, the voter must affidavit by handwritten signature on the voting card that he has filled in the official ballot personally, unobserved, uninfluenced and before the last polling station closed. The voting card must be deposited with the electoral authority no later than the eighth day after the election day at 2 p.m.

Preliminary investigation

District representative election

The mandates of the district representatives are assigned to the campaigning parties according to the D'Hondt'schen procedure in a preliminary investigation.

Local council election

The assignment of the mandates of the municipal council takes place in two preliminary investigations.
The first preliminary investigation takes place at constituency level. According to § 11 Vienna City Constitution, the number of mandates to be awarded per constituency is determined based on the number of Austrian citizens with main residence in the respective constituencies with the help of the D'Hondt procedure . In the 2015 municipal council elections , 11 out of a total of 100 mandates were to be awarded in the most populous constituency of Donaustadt , while in the least populous constituencies Hernals , Hietzing , Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus and Währing only 3 mandates each.

First preliminary investigation

The responsible district electoral authority determines a number of votes: The total of valid votes cast in the constituency is divided by the number of mandates to be awarded, increased by 0.5 (until April 19, 2016: one). The result must be rounded up to the next whole number. Each party receives as many mandates as the number of votes included in its party total. Mandates that are not awarded in this way (remaining mandates) are awarded by the city electoral authority in the second preliminary investigation on the basis of the sum of those party votes that were insufficient for the assignment of a seat in the first preliminary investigation (residual votes).

Second preliminary investigation

Only those parties take part in the second preliminary investigation who received at least one mandate (basic mandate) or at least 5% of the valid votes cast in the entire municipality (threshold clause). In this process, the remaining mandates are divided between the remaining parties. First, the number of votes is determined, in which - similar to the D'Hondt method - a series of remaining votes is formed, which are divided by 1,2,3 etc. This series is sorted and the number in the position corresponding to the number of mandates to be awarded is taken as the number to choose. All parties get as many mandates as the number of votes fits into the remaining votes. If a mandate remains vacant or if several parties are entitled to a mandate, the decision is made by lot.

Parties with a strong vote receive more mandates in the first preliminary investigation, while all parties in the second preliminary investigation that have reached more than 5% receive approximately the same number of mandates. However, the mandates in the first preliminary investigation are cheaper because the number of mandates in each constituency is increased by 1 when calculating the number of votes. It is calculated as there would be a total of 118 instead of 100 mandates, which means that a mandate costs around 15% fewer votes on average. In the 2015 municipal council election, 70 mandates were awarded in the first investigation, which cost an average of 7082 votes, and 30 mandates in the second investigation, which cost an average of 10,579 votes.

Term of office

Both the municipal council and the district councils are elected for five years. In the event of a new election to the municipal council before the end of its term of office, the district representatives are also re-elected. If a district council is dissolved, it will only be elected for the remaining term of office of the local council.

Past election results

The last municipal council and district council election so far took place on October 11, 2015. The results of past municipal council and district council elections are presented in the article Results of the municipal elections in Vienna .

Election of the city senate, which also acts as the state government

The members of the city senate, which is also the state government, are elected by the municipal council and are called city councils. The parties represented in the municipal council are entitled to proportionate representation in the city senate ( proportional representation ). Two of the city councils are elected as vice mayors by the local council in a separate ballot, with a vice mayor being proposed by the strongest party in the local council. The second deputy mayor is to be proposed by the second strongest party if it holds at least one third of the municipal council mandates (= 34).

In addition, the municipal council elects a city council for each administrative group, which has to lead the business group of the magistrate with regard to its own area of ​​activity (“office-leading city council”). If, as has often been the case in Vienna since 1919, the majority party has an absolute majority in the municipal council, it can govern without a coalition and therefore, if a coalition does not materialize, assign no administration (no departments) to the city councils of other parliamentary groups. In terms of the constitution, these mandataries are simply called city councils, and in journalism to distinguish between office-holding councils, they are also non-executive or controlling city councils.

The mayor, who is also the governor and thus the chairman of the state government, is also elected by the municipal council with an unconditional majority of the valid votes cast.

National Council election

The elections to the National Council are carried out throughout the entire federal territory, since the National Council, unlike the Federal Council , whose members are delegated by the newly elected state parliaments at different times, is always completely re-elected. Vienna forms one of the nine state constituencies and is divided into seven regional constituencies.
The regional constituencies are:

In 1923, 1927, 1945 and 1949 the National Council elections and the Viennese municipal council elections took place on the same day.

Election of the Federal President

The election of the Federal President is also carried out throughout Austria. Here, too, the state of Vienna forms one of the nine state electoral districts. Each parish is its own electoral district. Since no mandates are awarded in the election for the Federal President, but a monocratic body is elected, the outcome of the election, unlike in the municipal council or national council elections, does not depend on the subdivision of the constituencies.

European elections

When the Austrian representatives are elected to the European Parliament, all of Austria forms an electoral district.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.wien.gv.at/wahl/NET/GR151/GR151-109.htm
  2. ↑ § 83 Vienna municipal election regulations 1996.
  3. ^ Election regulations for Vienna