🇦🇹 Austrian Elections & Politics 6.0 - Upper Austria election: 26 Sept. 2021

[Oryxslayer]

New Vienna state election poll for the fall:



Strong start for DAÖ.

If the numbers were theoretically here for a a ÖVP-Green-NEOS, do you think the parties would move towards forming such a government for the city, or would another SPÖ+ govt get formed? The advantages with such a govt would be alignment with the national coalition and they get to kick out the dominant SPÖ. The obvious disadvantage is that it would be a slim majority, and it would have three parties. It also would need to actually have a majority, which this poll doesn't say is there. Ever since the FPO split the attention on the right has shifted towards the two parties, pushing ÖVP-Green-NEOS away from the line they once were closer to.

[Oryxslayer]

Also:

A 100% postal vote for the October Vienna state election is legally not possible.

https://www.vienna.at/wien-wahl-als-reine-briefwahl-wohl-nicht-moeglich/6589801

For this, the constitution would have to be changed. A virus outbreak is not mentioned in the constitution.

Still, it is possible that 25-50% will vote by post this time. This would limit the amount of people at polling stations.

Anyway, there were no lines before either ... you never have to wait more than 1 or 2 minutes in Austrian elections to vote.

Hour-long lines like in the US are unthinkable here.

On the other hand, lines may be necessary. As we saw in IL/WI, polling stations had to limit the number of available booths, because booths needed to be separated by more space than previously. Lines also had to observe social distancing protocols, and therefore ended up longer than previously. On the other hand, the US ballot is incredibly long when compared to other nations, so voters spend more time inside the booth.

[Oryxslayer]

Also:

A 100% postal vote for the October Vienna state election is legally not possible.

https://www.vienna.at/wien-wahl-als-reine-briefwahl-wohl-nicht-moeglich/6589801

For this, the constitution would have to be changed. A virus outbreak is not mentioned in the constitution.

Still, it is possible that 25-50% will vote by post this time. This would limit the amount of people at polling stations.

Anyway, there were no lines before either ... you never have to wait more than 1 or 2 minutes in Austrian elections to vote.

Hour-long lines like in the US are unthinkable here.

On the other hand, lines may be necessary. As we saw in IL/WI, polling stations had to limit the number of available booths, because booths needed to be separated by more space than previously. Lines also had to observe social distancing protocols, and therefore ended up longer than previously. On the other hand, the US ballot is incredibly long when compared to other nations, so voters spend more time inside the booth.

Yeah, but if 50% vote by postal ballot this year and there's only 200 people left per precinct to vote in person, then only a handful of people will enter the polling station.

Maybe 1 or 2 people every minute ...

We don't have those large precincts that you see in the US. There are states where people simply can go to a precinct they want, creating big lines.

Here, every voter is assigned to a precinct and can only vote there (unless you bring your postal ballot with you to another precinct). That means only 400 per precinct.

The super-precincts were emergency creations when it was realized poll workers were scared of showing up, something that hopefully won't be a case in a few months. Outside of those super-precincts voting works similar in the US, there is just more people so the 'matched' precincts have an average of 1.5K people. Social distancing guidelines were and still need to be respected at the matched precincts, and I hope Austria and every nation that tries to hold elections will respect health standards.

[Oryxslayer]

Burgenland governor Hans Peter Doskozil will be the new leader of the SPÖ. He won 33.68% in the internal leadership election. It was a close result: 31.51% voted for Andreas Babler, 31.35% for current leader Pamela Rendi-Wagner. This means FPÖ-SPÖ probably becomes more realistic. On the 3rd of June, there will be a party congress to make things official - Babler and Rendi-Wagner are expected to accept the result according to Austrian state media ORF.

People have previously pointed out that SPD infighting and leader unpopularity are why they failed to rise off the ÖVP collapse, leading to things like the KPÖ gaining relevance and the FPÖ currently leading the polls. And this guy is new and supposedly popular. So I would be curious to see if voters intentions remain the same in a month or so.