Austrian Elections & Politics 2.0 (Presidential runoff re-vote: 4 Dec. 2016)

[aross]

Is there any chance of early elections due to the departure of Faymann, or will they be held off too see if the FPO surge starts to slither down a bit?

Basically no way. Team Proporz may be going down together, but they're not stupid enough to scuttle themselves yet.

Speaking of which, Gallup/Österreich (first poll under Kern):



First poll with the SPÖ in second for a while. Only 33% want new elections, 53% are opposed.

[aross]

   In looking over the Vienna results is there anything special about the Neubau, Mariahelfer and Josephstadt districts that make them such a VDB stronghold?  He won them about 80% with a big voter turnout.  They alone accounted for a 25,000 vote victory margin, accounting for most of his overall Austria victory margin.

Bobos, en masse.
(Somewhat less so in Josefstadt, actually, it is more old-school well-off, but the difference between the two is increasingly disappearing.)

[aross]

Hajek/Kurier:


(@DavidB: You will note this pollster has somewhat higher fluctuations.)

[aross]

And all this is a surprise why precisely? In fact, you'd almost certainly get a better correlation if you took VdB as the "right" candidate and Hofer for the "left".

[aross]

What's up with the non-contiguous part of Tirol? (this may not be the best thread for the question, but I've never noticed it before)

Ost(Eastern)tirol. Formerly connected to the rest of Tyrol via Südtirol.

[aross]

The absolute worst-case for the VdB camp would be if the CC declares the runoff illegal, orders a re-vote and temporarily suspends postal voting (except for Austrians abroad) until SPÖVP fixes the election law to make it 100% accurate ...

What are the chances of this happening, realistically...

Close to 0%.

Well, after the Vienna-02 ruling yesterday, that's probably up to a 20-40% chance now ...

No, it clearly isn't (nor the even more ridiculous percentages you asserted above). This decision was down to two factors:

• The postal ballots in question were unaccounted for, i.e. the result was actually being affected
• This relative small number of ballots (~80) could, by chance, be enough to materially change the result (the FPÖ might have gained a seat from the Greens)

Both these conditions need to be fulfilled for any sort of new election to take place. Given that the FPÖ have so far only alleged errors of form, which wouldn't change the result, neither seems likely.

While the Constitutional Court has indeed become slightly more active in recent years, it is still incredibly restrained (mostly because it is stuffed with loyal party appointees). It also can't suspend postal voting as it is itself regulated by Austria's (absurdly long and not-in-one-document) constitution.

What this does clearly show is that Austria desperately needs a provision for recounts.

[aross]

Maybe, but the early opening and pre-selection of postal ballots on Sunday affected more than 500.000 ballots, according to the FPÖ-lawsuit.

And this is not allowed, according to the election law. And the CC is taking this matter very seriously it seems, because they will have hearings the whole next week and asked 90 (!) witnesses (= district election commission members from the districts mentioned in the FPÖ's lawsuit) to appear in court next week ...

But - unless I have missed something - no-one is actually alleging that if these irregularities in the count actually affected the result - that is why I spoke of "errors of form". Sure, it's not meant to work like that, but it didn't actually change who won, so no reason for a rerun.

Given that a major political party is claiming electoral fraud (and, more indirectly, some sort of establishment conspiracy), I would be extremely disappointed if the Constitutional Court wasn't taking this very seriously, no matter how absurd and spurious their allegations are.

Aross says that apparently the Constitutional Court cannot suspend the postal voting (for some reason that I don't understand, because it's the friggin' Constitutional Court, so who else can suspend it, if not the CC ?).

Because something that is part of the constitution (such as postal voting, which is obviously absurd, but never mind, it's Austria) can by definition not be unconstitutional.

[aross]

Tender... a bit of an "out there" query. It involves South Tyrol (and let dead dogs sleep is my motto in that regard).

Nevertheless, back in 2015, a Spectra opinion poll of Austrians stated that 89% both favour a referendum in South Tyrol and 89% also preferred South Tyrol becoming part of Austria.

http://www.thelocal.at/20150126/austrians-in-favour-of-unification-with-south-tyrol

Along those same lines, Hofer is a far-right nationalist and am curious why he does not advocate same in Austria during the presidential election campaign. In Austrian Tyrol, VdB won by 51.4% to 48.6% over Hofer in the previous final ballot.

One would think that Hofer would champion such a South Tyrol referendum during the current campaign in order to perhaps swing the state of Tyrol over to him.

Again, I am just throwing this matter out there. Am against same myself... but curious why far-right Hofer does not champion same?

In Italy, Trentino-Alto Adige tends to vote for mainstream centrist or center-left parties (the main local party, SVP, is part of the left coalition, and the Northern Leage always did very poorly). I doubt it would be fertile ground for Hofer, especially since Italians there would be scared by Austrian nationalism.

That was a very misleading/inaccurate poll, because it was done for a secessionist group in South Tyrol.

These polls have nothing to do with reality and they always overstate the actual support for secession from Italy.

In fact, I don't know many people (even among my FPÖ-voting family) that would like South Tyrol join Austria again. In fact, most Austrians like it the way it is.

Hm. Whenever this comes up, I tend to find a surprising amount conservatives (both bürgerlich and FPÖ, though I tend to avoid politics with the latter) I know care about it.

Spectra is a perfectly respectable, if minor pollster. Mostly tends to poll Upper Austria though. The question on self-determination was „In Südtirol wird immer wieder der Wunsch nach Ausübung des Selbstbestimmungsrechtes geäußert. Würden Sie es begrüßen, wenn die Bevölkerung Südtirols in einem Referendum auf friedliche und demokratische Weise über die staatliche Zugehörigkeit des Landes entscheidet, oder würden Sie das nicht begrüßen?“ (The desire for exercising self-determination has been a recurring issue in South Tyrol. Would you welcome the population of South Tyrol peacefully and democratically deciding their future allegiance by referendum?) So not exactly neutral, but not misleading either. The wording of the supposed second question on actually joining Austria can't be found and having exactly the same result does seem somewhat dodgy. 89% for self-determination seems at least possible if you exclude DKs - which there will be a lot of, as you said (and despite what I said) a lot of people still don't care + people who dislike the idea due to nationalist connotation but don't want to say self-determination is bad. Interestingly, the poll also found support was lowest in Western Austria.

Speaking personally, I fully support the idea of self-determination and it seems fairly clear and obvious to me it applies to South Tyrol. The "indivisible unity of the nation" some European states still dare to come up with (looking at you, Spain) is frankly disgraceful. (Though one of the articles on this poll actually said the Heimatbund (ugh) had also commissioned a poll in Italy which showed 72% support, so fair enough, it's only the official stance that's an issue in this case.) As for a referendum, the Scottish precedent - majority in the regional parliament required to trigger - seem reasonably. Anyway, at the same time, I have no particular desire for reunification (and the vast majority of its proponents are of course highly distasteful), though I would obviously have opposed partition at the time. And of course, it's highly unlikely ever to happen because the SVP are perfectly happy being pork-barrelers-in-chief and are doing quite well for themselves. They truly are the Italian PNV...

South Tyrolean independence is just as bizarre an idea as Ulster independence and about as likely ever to happen.

All couple thousand election officials are now getting mandatory e-learning lessons ahead of the re-vote ...

I cannot think of a cleaner election anywhere than what we are about to see on Oct. 2 ...

http://diepresse.com/home/politik/innenpolitik/5056868/Stichwahl_ELearningModul-soll-Rechtswidrigkeiten-verhindern

Not to put to fine a point on it, but the Greens have been doing this (at their own expense) for years...

[aross]

This could also help Hofer in the re-vote, because he badly needs to draw additional non-voters to the polls in this VdB-stronghold.

This makes not the slightest bit of sense, and is only the latest example of you treating Austrian politics as some kind of tribute act to the United States of America. We don't have some kind of electoral college, nor, for that matter, Governors, conventions, or precincts. Please stop. It's a bit like that 18 year old I met recently who couldn't stop talking about Bernie Sanders but had never heard of Christian Kern or the Nationalrat.

[aross]

Your post makes no sense ...

Just like yours then. :c**nteyes:

I was referring to the second half of your post

he badly needs to draw additional non-voters to the polls in this VdB-stronghold.

Why? No part of this sentence makes sense. Hofer doesn't need either voters in Vienna or non-voters more than voters anywhere else. Now this may, on the face of it, appear pedantic - but it really, really isn't. So often (and that, not this particular post, is what this is about), what you post in this thread is, to use a phrase, "not even wrong" - it's just meaningless. That, or conventional wisdom while trying to sound like some American pundit. And, maybe I'm being silly, but I come here for proper discussion and analysis and I'm afraid it does grate a wee bit.

Anyway, [/rant].

[aross]

Interesting fact : in Eastern France where I lived for a few years, especially in Moselle, people actually said "faire bleu" to mean "not going to school or work". Nobody in the rest of France understands because it's a German calque. I was however not aware that it also meant "having a hangover", but I don't think it's the primary sense, maybe it specialized in that sense in Austrian.

Not where I live, that's exactly what it means to me too.

[aross]

Yeah.

Like I said, joke country.

[aross]

Confirmed. Will now be held either on the 27th November or 4th December. Sobotka also asks parliament to pass a constitutional amendment (lol, as usual) to add newly enfranchised voters to the rolls. Jesus, this country.

Don't tell me you don't miss him.

[aross]

Confirmed. Will now be held either on the 27th November or 4th December. Sobotka also asks parliament to pass a constitutional amendment (lol, as usual) to add newly enfranchised voters to the rolls. Jesus, this country.

Don't tell me you don't miss him.

Don't you want be part of Germany again? I suggest we take Christian Kern as chancellor and get rid of Merkel. I think that would be a good idea...

But donchanow Merkel is the German left now because muh refugees. At least that's what my Facebook feed tells me.

I wouldn't want to impose either Kern or Team Proporz on you, nor do I wish to be burdened with the hive of evil that is the CSU or have to pretend to like the descending hordes of Piefkes.  I'll settle for Vienna as the capital and Chancellor Gregor Gysi.

[aross]

Also, like aross already said:

SPÖ, ÖVP, Greens and NEOS have agreed to update the voter list for the delayed election.

This will add the roughly 50.000 new voters who reached voting age between April and December.

Since SPÖ, ÖVP, Greens and NEOS have a 2/3 majority in parliament to pass it - the support of the FPÖ and TS is meaniningless on this issue. According to "exit polls", first-time voters lean to VdB, but the margin of error is high. It would be foolish for the FPÖ to vote against updating the voter list.

Now, a sub-50k margin, another bullsh**t line of reasoning (this time probably involving the ECHR so as not to go ultra vires) and a Constitutional Court that continues to annoyingly excel at trolling and we're all set for Round 4: PCC by-election turnout Boogaloo.

[aross]

Update:

All party representatives and the Interior Ministry task force have agreed to amend the law to count all postal votes on election night already, not the Monday after the election.



Good news. Previously, they wanted to amend the law after the election was held, now we already get the final result on Dec. 4 !

So something sensible has come of all this faff. Never thought I'd see the day.

[aross]

PARLIAMENT IS LITERALLY ON FIRE!



they've extinguished it now but hahaha metaphors intensify

[aross]

Weird question: why does Austria use PR and not MMp like Germany?

Sorry, this is a bit late as I’ve been busy.

Well, as you probably know the unprecedented introduction of MMP in Germany was very much inspired by the experience of Weimar and the obscene disproportionality and ungovernability etc etc.  MMP was actually one of the most proportional options considered by the Parliamentary Council (the body responsible for drafting Germany's post-war constitution and making preparations for the first Bundestag election). It was passed at the last minute as a provisional law for the first election only by the SPD and the smaller parties against the wishes of the right (CDU/CSU and much of the emerging FDP). At the time it was seen as a rather odd accident and not really expected to last, indeed there were many proposals to revise it during the early Bundesrepublik (the last and most remembered being the First Grand Coalition’s plans to introduce 3- or 4-member D’Hondt) and  it was significantly amended for the 1953 election. What I’m getting at is that, if anything, MMP is the historical accident, not the other way round.

It also reflects the countries’ different post-war approaches - Germany's 'fresh start' and 4 years' wait for elections versus continuity in Austria. The old constitution (which required PR anyway and MMP at the time was definitely not seen as that) was reintroduced along with the old electoral law and the first election held just 6 months after the end of the war. Not much opportunity to revise things and no party had much interest in it anyway. There’s been a limited amount of discussion on electoral reform at various points since then including a certain Graz professor being given rather too much attention which has resulted in ‘a majoritarian system’ meaning majority bonuses in media parlance and MMP naturally occasionally figures in that but not really in a major way mainly as, well, it wouldn’t really change that much. Particularly as what electoral reform proponents here are generally looking for is a way to force Team Proporz apart. Oh and NEOS are officially in favour and not even they themselves care.