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

[Martim Silva]

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.)

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.

At least now you mention the matter of the extra voter turnout, which had places with 100%+, even 300%, that you left behind in your last post. Thank goodness I was here to remind you of that sad omission.

Of course, you justify it, since this is quite normal: I am sure everyone here is used to witness these massive turnouts in many areas in every election in their own countries. They probably happen every time there is an election.

And, as you quickly noticed, what changed the tables were the postal ballots, who allowed for a surprise turnaround of the election and gave the win (now annulled) to the Green candidate by a margin of only 31,000 votes, and that the number of this votes was larger than in previous elections.

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).

I did notice, oddly enough, that you didn't specify out just HOW many more of these postal votes there were.

As per the BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36355615

Some 750,000 postal votes from roughly 12% of Austria's 6.4 million voters are being counted on Monday.

While, as a comparison, in the previous presidential elections,

http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/69071?download=true (See page 10, third paragraph):

(..) Some 373,902 voting cards were issued in all, of which 92 per cent were distributed to voters within Austria. A total of 75 per cent of the issued voting cards were received as postal ballots at the district level; thus no more than 25 per cent were used as regular ballots at polling stations on election day.

More than double the votes, accounting to a staggering 12% of the population. And even though the election took place in a nice spring day, precisely the weather where you'd expect more people to vote normally, instead of using postal votes.

But for Mr. Syt, all is normal. I guess we all have 10%+ of our populations voting via mail these days.

So,

- Voter turnout exceeds 100% in plenty of places - all normal and regular, just a series of explainable errors (who surely must be very common in other democratic nations too), says Mr. Syt.

- Postal Votes more than double in relation to other elections to numbers never before seen. Amazingly, a proportion also unique of around 70% goes to the establishment-backed candidate, giving him the precise narrow margin that he needed to secure the win - Nothing to see there, says Mr. Syt.

- Constitutional Court demands new elections; these are delayed for months due to security issues regarding "glue" - all more than reasonable concerns, says Mr. Syt.

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

Mr. Syt, given your habit of carefully selecting which bits of information you present here, it seems that your credibility regarding Austrian issues is the same as that of the gentleman below regarding Iraqi affairs:

[Syt]

I'm not going to engage with the misinformed drivel you just vomited into this thread.

[garbon]

I'm not going to engage with the misinformed drivel you just vomited into this thread.

Sounds like a good plan.

[celedhring]

All aboard the 2016 Retarded Electorates Fun Train! Next station, Austria. Will the FPÖ win in the repeat of the presidential election this Sunday?

Apparently the polls are pretty tight - as tight was the previous vote - but the FPÖ nazi candidate has a slight advantage. Since officials don't want another fracas like the last time, it is expected that the election could take a few days to be called.

[Zanza]

Looks like the Green candidate won about 53.5 - 46.5 over the FPÖ candidate.

[Syt]

Meanwhile, FPÖ polls at 33% for federal elections (over Social Democrats' 27).

[CountDeMoney]

Pfft, weak.  A Europe-engulfing alt-right movement without Austrians is like a cattle car without Jews.  It just doesn't work, man.

[Syt]

It seems van der Bellen won all state capitals of Austria, and all districts in Vienna (he lost two or three in the first go). In fact, there's only 5 or so districts in Vienna where he's received over 40%.

And it seems there's dozens of districts throughout Austria, where van der Bellen has improved the result, versus only one for Hofer.

[The Larch]

It seems van der Bellen won all state capitals of Austria, and all districts in Vienna (he lost two or three in the first go). In fact, there's only 5 or so districts in Vienna where he's received over 40%.

And it seems there's dozens of districts throughout Austria, where van der Bellen has improved the result, versus only one for Hofer.

What about number of votes? How do they compare to the previous time? Did people who previously didn't vote now vote for van del Bellen?

[Syt]

Only few people switched between the two. It seems Hofer lost votes mostly to non-voters while van der Bellen mostly gained from previous non-voters.