FPÖ and Greens to face each other in fun off for President of Austria

[jimmy olsen]

Make Austria Great Again?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/mainstream-hopefuls-lag-as-austrians-vote-for-new-president-1461495458

Austrian Voters Deal Blow to Mainstream Parties in Election

Anti-immigrant Norbert Hofer, former Greens spokesman Alexander Van der Bellen likely to face each other in runoff
By WILLIAM BOSTON
Updated April 24, 2016 2:08 p.m. ET
17 COMMENTS

Voters in Austria's presidential election Sunday sent a stern warning to the established parties that have ruled the country since World War II, making a populist, anti-immigrant candidate the front-runner.

Preliminary results published by the Austrian interior ministry, which didn't include mail-in ballots, showed that Norbert Hofer, from the anti-immigrant Freedom Party, which is known by its German initials FPÖ, with 36.4% of the vote.

Alexander Van der Bellen, a 72-year-old economist and former spokesman for the Greens who took a pro-refugee stance during the campaign, secured nearly 20.4% of the vote, according to the ministry. Mr. Van der Bellen, himself a child of refugee parents, is opposed to all restrictions on asylum seekers.

Candidates from the Social Democrats and Austrian People's Party, which together form the current coalition government, each received around 11% of the vote.

Irmgard Griss, a retired president of the Austrian Supreme Court who ran as an independent in a bid to become the country's first female president, received 18.5% of the vote, according to preliminary results.

Mr. Hofer and Mr. Van der Bellen will likely face each other in a runoff vote on May 22. Final results for the first round will be released on Monday.

The Austrian president is a largely ceremonial figure, but the election has nevertheless attracted international attention.

The outcome from Sunday's vote is widely seen as a further sign of growing disaffection in Europe with established parties. It underlines the continent's worst refugee crisis since the war is upending the region's politics, with once marginal fringe parties increasingly threatening longer-established groupings..

In neighboring Germany, home to the bulk of the EU's refugees, Chancellor Angela Merkel has seen her high ratings weaken despite a recent tightening of her once liberal refugee policies. Her party has lost support to the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party.

In France, Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Front, is expected to make a strong showing in next year's presidential elections.

The election doesn't mean a change of government in Austria. But the poor showing from the coalition parties' candidates— Rudolf Hundstorfer for the Social Democrats and Andreas Khol of the Austrian People's Party—puts them under pressure ahead of 2018's general election.

The ruling coalition has come under enormous pressure as a result of Europe's refugee crisis.

Chancellor Werner Faymann came under fire at home when he initially supported Ms. Merkel's open-door policy for refugees. He then performed an abrupt about-face, slamming Austria's doors shut and effectively shutting down the so-called Balkan route from Syria to Western Europe.

[Legbiter]

Go Team Shitlord.

[Drakken]

And there was a time where dozens of thousands of Europeans that would throw themselves in the streets, and Austria was threatened to become Europe's North Korea, because the Freedom Party was poised to be part of a governing coalition in Austrian Parliament.

Now, zero fucks given.

[Norgy]

The Austrian party system/political system with all the grand coalitions sort of has been asking for the FPÖ to come and challenge it. Not that I particulary like the. The old Waffen-SS guys may have died out mostly by now, though, so more fresh and less battle-hardened Nazis in government.

[Archy]

Just curieus Van Der Bellen. A refugee from where? South Africa? His name is very Dutch.

[Barrister]

Just curieus Van Der Bellen. A refugee from where? South Africa? His name is very Dutch.

Father was dutch descent from Russia, mother was Estonian.  His parents were refugees when the Soviets invaded Estonia and lived.  Van der Bellen, born 1944, was born in Austria though, so I don't know it's fair to call him a refugee - oh I see he's described as the "child of refugee parents".

[derspiess]

I think he's from the Bellen.

[Archy]

I think he's from the Bellen.

From the bubbles is the literal translation.
Just quickly googled it means. (son) of Balduin

[Syt]

So, you know how the story went. Van der Bellen won the vote by a narrow margin thanks to the mail in vote. The FPÖ protested against the result. Their sticking point: irregularities with the mail in votes (the FPÖ barely gets mail in votes).

This went to the constitutional court which admonished all election offices for not sticking to procedure: most offices opened the mail in votes too early to make sure they were done by the deadline. This (and other "cutting corners" measures) were widely practiced for decades, but with the FPÖ losing so narrowly they were the first to bring it to court. The constitutional court was clear that there was no suspicion of election fraud, but the election needs to be repeated because of the formal errors.

(N.B.: Many pro-FPÖ witnesses in the court case had helped in the vote counts and had originally signed off that everything was A-OK; potentially they could be prosecuted for perjury, though probably nothing will come of it.)

So, the repeat is (very likely) getting postponed. Originally, 2nd October was the scheduled date.

However, thousands of forms for mail in votes that were sent out were using a bad adhesive which means that the enevlopes would not be properly sealed during their journey by mail.

The Minister of the Interior will petition the parliament to postpone the vote will at least end of November/early December. The FPÖ already clamors that this is all a plot to buy time against their candidate.

Meanwhile, various youth organizations have demanded that the voter registry for this election gets updated, because numerous voters have died in the meantime, while others have come of age. Should there be no registry update, they would protest the election in court.

[Syt]

The vote off has been scheduled for 4th December, or 28 weeks after the voided election of 22/05/16.

[Martim Silva]

So, you know how the story went. Van der Bellen won the vote by a narrow margin thanks to the mail in vote. The FPÖ protested against the result. Their sticking point: irregularities with the mail in votes (the FPÖ barely gets mail in votes).

This went to the constitutional court which admonished all election offices for not sticking to procedure: most offices opened the mail in votes too early to make sure they were done by the deadline. This (and other "cutting corners" measures) were widely practiced for decades, but with the FPÖ losing so narrowly they were the first to bring it to court. The constitutional court was clear that there was no suspicion of election fraud, but the election needs to be repeated because of the formal errors.

(N.B.: Many pro-FPÖ witnesses in the court case had helped in the vote counts and had originally signed off that everything was A-OK; potentially they could be prosecuted for perjury, though probably nothing will come of it.)

So, the repeat is (very likely) getting postponed. Originally, 2nd October was the scheduled date.

However, thousands of forms for mail in votes that were sent out were using a bad adhesive which means that the enevlopes would not be properly sealed during their journey by mail.

The Minister of the Interior will petition the parliament to postpone the vote will at least end of November/early December. The FPÖ already clamors that this is all a plot to buy time against their candidate.

Meanwhile, various youth organizations have demanded that the voter registry for this election gets updated, because numerous voters have died in the meantime, while others have come of age. Should there be no registry update, they would protest the election in court.

Typically, your biased 'report' makes no mention of the "serious irregularities" found by the Constitutional Court, like a voter turnout of over 146% in Waidhofen an der Ybbs, and some of or above 100% in several other places.

http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/ausland/europa/wahl-in-oesterreich-fpoe-chef-strache-witterte-wahlbetrug-14250264-p2.html

Am Dienstagmorgen tauchte ein weiterer Link zum Innenministerium auf, auf der für den Stimmkreis Waidhofen an der Ybbs eine Wahlbeteiligung von 146,9 Prozent vermeldet wurde. Die Zahl der abgegebenen Stimmen war größer als die Zahl der Stimmberechtigten.

Austria has great Democracy. More than 100% of electors vote in many places. If the UK had a Democracy so advanced as Austria, the Leave campaign would never have won the referendum.

[The Minsky Moment]

What's the connection of the FAZ article to the finding of the constitutional court?

[Syt]

As the Austrian ambassador has probably already explained during your last round of croquet together, the Waidhofen result was a result of a data transmission error. It would not have affected the outcome. The court didn't go into the question of Waidhofen's data error in its decision.

The court pointed out the irregularities where districts didn't follow the legal procedures for mail in votes. Normally, they're supposed to be opened on Monday morning, and counted till early afternoon. A practice in many districts was to open them the evening before and sort them already, to make the counting next day easier and faster to make sure the dealines are observed. The court decided that this practice is a) illegal b) allows theoretically for manipulation and c) that there was no indication that the vote was tampered with. (In fact, many of the witnesses asked just seemed absolutely clueless about proedures and rules.)

The FPÖ case brought attention to this long standing practice and will likely prompt changes in the procedures, because when the law was created there were much fewer mail in votes than today. (Mail in votes are often sent by commuters or students who spend weekends away from their main place of residence, e.g people working in big cities going to their families in the countryside on weekends, therefore not able to cast the vote on Sunday.) Mail in votes are a bit of a misnomer, anyways, because you can hand them in at any voting office on election day (which can theoretically lead to over 100% turnout in those districts receiving them).

E.g. in a Special District in Linz voter turnout was over 500%. They're the "dumping" place for unassigned mail votes, leading to the high votes compared to registered voters. They said that in following elections they would show the extra votes differently in the statistics.

Some legal experts have argued that the court shouldn't have annulled the vote, because the law says it should only happen if the outcome was affected. The court stated that this was not the case, but I think not annulling the result would have been a bad political move, casting constant doubt over the legitimacy of the president.

But I'm sure you were aware of all this and just wanted to spout some conspiracy nonsense.

[Syt]

The parliamentary committee has prepared the legislative draft for the postponed election, to be debated and voted on in parliament.

All parties agreed on the draft, except for Team Stronach (politically irrelevant fringe party founded by an industrial tycoon) and - surprise - FPÖ who are not ok with the later voting date and would prefer the vote to go forward on 2nd October.

So the discussion goes like this:

*vote is held*
FPÖ: "We think there's been irregularities that pull the result into question. To ensure sound democratic procedures we request to annul the vote."
Constitutional Court: "You're right. We don't think there's been manipulation, but let's re-do anyways, to be on the safe side."
*general agreement*


*2 months later*
Interior Minister, after many media reports: "The envelopes for the mail vote are faulty. We can't ensure that there's no irregularities or that there's no chance for manipulation, so we'd be back to square one. We need to postpone to get new envelopes."
FPÖ: "Meh, let's just go ahead, anyways!"

[Martinus]

Between this, Brexit and the US elections, I am not sure if I should be happy or worry that other countries have as much of fucked up election problems as Poland.