Austrian Elections & Politics 5.0 (Burgenland state election - January 26)

[jimrtex]

Nice visualisation of how seat allocation works in Austria:

https://vis.strategieanalysen.at/mandate/

How are the individual MPs determined.

One slide showed the number of mandates per constituency was based on the 2011 Census, but would be somewhat different based on 2019 population. What was used for this election? Since Austria no longer has a census, can these numbers be adjusted annually?

What is the mathematical method for apportioning mandates? Is this done nationally, or by state, then by constituency?

Weinviertel was shown as gaining two mandates (from 5 to 7) based on 2019. Is this suburban growth? Are the boundaries of Vienna more or less permanent? Since Vienna North would have also gained a mandate, and Vienna Inner West would lose one, would this reflect northward growth in the city? Why is this so?

Is it feasible/practicable to commute to Vienna on a daily basis from Czechia, Slovakia, or Hungary?

If a party is only contesting select states, and wins a mandate (likely at the state level) is that seat then excluded from the national allocation?

[jimrtex]

Nice visualisation of how seat allocation works in Austria:

https://vis.strategieanalysen.at/mandate/

How are the individual MPs determined.

First by regional electoral district, then by state, then the rest via the federal election list.

There are 49 lists (39 RED, 9 statem and one federal)? Is there any sort of residency requirement for candidates? (practical or legal) May/must candidates appear on three lists, assuming that the party is contesting the election nationally?

Are the lists closed or open?

What strategies do parties employ in constructing their lists?

One slide showed the number of mandates per constituency was based on the 2011 Census, but would be somewhat different based on 2019 population. What was used for this election? Since Austria no longer has a census, can these numbers be adjusted annually?

Austria still has a 10-year census, the last one in 2011 and the next in 2021. Why did you assume we have no census anymore ? It's just a register-based census, not a traditional one like in the US. The seats of each R.E.D. are determined by the citizen population of the Census result in 2011. This is not updated each year. The next determination will come in 2021. The slide just used a 2019 projection, based on the latest annual numbers.

I thought you had said that that Austria no longer has a census. Why wait 10 years between censuses? Couldn't the register be used to produce a result annually?

What is the mathematical method for apportioning mandates? Is this done nationally, or by state, then by constituency?

No, it's the other way around (see above). The vast majority of seats (more than 100 out of 183 are first determined by the R.E.D. results, then state, then federal.

I was asking a different question. Lower Austria has 37 mandates, and Lower Austria East has 4 mandates. Presumably they have approximately 37/183 and 4/183 of the total citizen population. How is the rounding done? Why not simply use the actual ratio (e.g. 37.183)?

Weinviertel was shown as gaining two mandates (from 5 to 7) based on 2019. Is this suburban growth? Are the boundaries of Vienna more or less permanent? Since Vienna North would have also gained a mandate, and Vienna Inner West would lose one, would this reflect northward growth in the city? Why is this so?

Correct. The seats are apportioned by citizenship (unlike in the US, where the whole population is used). Citizens are moving out of Vienna and into the suburbs. Vienna is only growing heavily because of non-citizens moving in. But there are some districts in Vienna, where citizens are also moving to, especially in the North.

The results show an area in the south of Vienna dominated by SPO. So presumably lower class,and perhaps increasingly foreign-born? There are also areas to the northeast, but they are broken up, so presumably the Danube has broken up settlement patterns, or perhaps there were/are large areas of public housing? The FPO has a somewhat similar pattern, so more working class at least in Vienna.

The Greens are spread out to the west northwest. Is this a University of Vienna effect, students, professors, and those who were educated and stuck around after graduating or not?

The OVP appear to be dispersed, except a concentrate in the vert center city. Only OVP voters can afford to live there, so an owner class?

Is it feasible/practicable to commute to Vienna on a daily basis from Czechia, Slovakia, or Hungary?

It is possible, but takes 2-3 hours and 2-3 hours back a day. The only interesting commute is between Vienna and Bratislava.

It appears that there is pretty frequent service via Flixbus from Bratislava to Vienna

If a party is only contesting select states, and wins a mandate (likely at the state level) is that seat then excluded from the national allocation?

This would depend on the specifics of the result, but as I have said above the first allocation is at the R.E.D. level.

At the RED level, a party would have to meet the state quota, so effectively there is a large thershold (the smallest is for Graz und Umbgebung, which has 9 mandates, and an effective threshold in 2017 of 11.3%).

Is there a threshold at the state level?

But let's assume that a party did elect a member at the state level, and they were not a national party. If the national allocation was carried out to 183 seats, their national allocation would be zero, so this would create an overhang. So would they instead allocate 182 seats nationally?

[jimrtex]

You only assigned 182 instead of 183 seats.

I guess the ÖVP would get the additional one.

If the 4% threshold were eliminated, then under D'Hondt,

JETZT would get 3, and KPO 1, at the expense of OVP 2, SPO 1, and FPO 1.

If Sainte-Lague were used, in addition to the above, WANDL would gain a seat at the expense of the Greens.

If the 4% threshold were maintained, then in this case, Sainte-Lague and D'Hondt would produce the same result. Arguably, Sainte-Lague is better for proportionality; though D'Hondt might be more consistent with the allocation at the RED and state level, where a whole quota is demanded.

[jimrtex]

Final results:



Historical results:



Despite their scandals, the FPÖ-base has strengthened a lot since the 1980s: from around 5%, to 10% in 2002 and now 16%.

The only party that has a constant downward trend is the SPÖ.

Why did OVP change color in 2017?

[jimrtex]

The number of RED-level seats declined from 99 to 79, mainly due to the decline in SPO and FPO support which pushed them below gaining a mandate except in larger RED or where they had exceptional support.

OVP 38 to 48
SPO 32 to 16
FPO 29 to 10
NEOS 0 to 0
Greens - to 5
JETZT 0 to -

This was largely compensated at the state level. as just-misses at the RED-level (70%-99% of the state-level quota) coalesced in additional seats.

OVP 16 to 15
SPO 13 to 19
FPO 13 to 16
NEOS 5 to 10
Greens - to 17
JETZT 5 to -

Total 52 to 77

At the federal level there was a decline, likely due to the Greens narrowly missing the threshold in 2017, and the missed seats being assigned to other parties.

OVP 8 to 8
SPO 7 to 5
FPO 9 to 5
NEOS 5 to 5
Greens - to 4
JETZT 3 to -

Total 32 to 27.

Question:

Will the shift from RED to State level election have much overall effect on Parliament? Or are the state-level members from SPO and FPO pretty much the same as if they had been elected at the RED level.

[jimrtex]

Julia Herr, the leader of the left-extremist SJ/Young Socialists (the youth organisation of the SPÖ) and Austrian counterpart to the German Kevin Kühnert (JUSOS), has been elected to parliament.

Frau Herr is an arch-left radical, who wants to nationalize banks, companies and the real-estate market and who wants to "move beyond capitalism".

Her Wikipedia page says that:

Nationalratswahl 2019

Am 10. Juli 2019 wurde bekannt gegeben, dass Julia Herr am 7. Listenplatz der SPÖ Bundesliste kandidieren wird.

Weiters wurde Herr 2019 Spitzenkandidatin in Penzing und Listenzweite im Regionalwahlkreis Wien-Süd-West.

Google translates this as saying that she was 7th on the national list.

What is a "Spitzenkandidatin" since Penzing is a district in Vienna, and smaller than the RED of Vienna South-West where she was second on the list. But SPO only elected one in Vienna Southwest, and five nationally. How/why was she elected?

Are there sample ballots on-line and a source for all the party lists.

[jimrtex]

Julia Herr, the leader of the left-extremist SJ/Young Socialists (the youth organisation of the SPÖ) and Austrian counterpart to the German Kevin Kühnert (JUSOS), has been elected to parliament.

Frau Herr is an arch-left radical, who wants to nationalize banks, companies and the real-estate market and who wants to "move beyond capitalism".

Her Wikipedia page says that:

Nationalratswahl 2019

Am 10. Juli 2019 wurde bekannt gegeben, dass Julia Herr am 7. Listenplatz der SPÖ Bundesliste kandidieren wird.

Weiters wurde Herr 2019 Spitzenkandidatin in Penzing und Listenzweite im Regionalwahlkreis Wien-Süd-West.

Google translates this as saying that she was 7th on the national list.

What is a "Spitzenkandidatin" since Penzing is a district in Vienna, and smaller than the RED of Vienna South-West where she was second on the list. But SPO only elected one in Vienna Southwest, and five nationally. How/why was she elected?

Are there sample ballots on-line and a source for all the party lists.

This 3-tier system is a bit complicated. I wish they would post it online.

But:

Bis zuletzt musste die Chefin der Sozialistischen Jugend (SJ), Julia Herr, um ihr Mandat bangen. Nach Auszählung der restlichen Stimmen am Donnerstag ist ihr Einzug nun fix. Grund dafür ist, dass die SPÖ in Wien ein Landesmandat verlor, auf Bundesebene allerdings von vier auf fünf Sitzplätze gekommen ist.

After all postal ballots were counted, the SPÖ received an even worse result in Vienna and lost one of their state seats. The SPÖ got an additional 5th for the federal list though, where Herr is benefitting now. She was only ranked 7th on the SPÖ's federal list, but candidates can choose which seat to take, either the R.E.D., state or federal seat. In which case other candidates benefit from their choices. Or lose out.

Wikipedia has an image for the 2017 election. Since it is an image, I can't translate it.

Why is column 5 blank?

Innsbruck 7A has two mandates but the RED lists have up to 12 names. Why?

Why are birth years included with candidate names?

The spaces for the federal list and regional list appear to be write-in spaces. True? OK, I found a brochure that says that you can also use the serial number. If one was not a wonk how would you know what serial number to use?

What do these mean? Why are they shown in the election results?

   Wahlkarten - Teil 1
   Wahlkarten - Teil 2
   Wahlkarten gesamt

I found the lists (on the BMI site). Why does SPO have 409 candidates on their national list, but OVP only 100?

On the roster of national lists, it is indicated whether they are also on a state or RED list. Would an ordinary Austrian know their state number or regional list number-letter?

I also found the preference results for 2017. It appears that less than 10% bother with the national list, and that among those that do overwhelmingly choose the party leader. Why bother. Does it sometimes have an effect in local elections?

Google Translate when translating the number "8" from German to English translates it as "8th". Is this a quirk or feature of Google translate?

I was curious why Burgenland (where Elisabeth Herr was born) is even a state. I see from Wikipedia that this is a historical accident from prior to WW I. Are there still viable Maygar and Croat minorities? It would seem like it would be hard to maintain breeding populations. When there were arranged marriages, perhaps you could find a second-cousin in Budapest, but now it would seem that you would tend to move to Budapest and become a Hungarian, or move to Vienna and become assimilated, with fewer social or work contacts.

[jimrtex]

So ÖVP in Ost-tyrol were dead souls. Despite giving huge numbers for the party, they did not get a seat in parliament.

There is a bias against smaller constituencies.

To win a regional seat, a party in Tyrol has to receive 1/15 of the total Tirol vote. Since East Tyrol has about 1/15 of the state electorate, this means a party would need almost all the votes in the region (it turns out 92.6%).

Number of mandates: Number of regions: elected/total mandates; relative elected.

1 mandate: 1 region: 0/1; 0%
2 mandates: 1 region: 0/2; 0%
3 mandates: 9 regions: 4/27; 15%
4 mandates: 9 regions: 13/36; 36%
5 mandates: 7 regions: 16/35: 46%
6 mandates: 6 regions: 19/36: 53%
7 mandates: 3 regions: 12/21: 57%
8 mandates: 2 regions: 8/16: 50%
9 mandates: 1 regions: 5/9: 55%

With the continued decline of SPO, the collapse of FPO, and rebound of Greens, fewer regional mandates were elected (declining from 99 to 79). Splitting the vote four ways, or five if we include NEOS and minor parties, means many won't be elected unless there is a large number of mandates (6 or more). Even OVP may not be able to secure two mandates.