All polling stations in Upper Austria closed

The survey results from the last few years clearly show how strongly voters’ opinions have changed again and again. The ÖVP started at a historic high, but then plummeted after Sebastian Kurz’s resignation. The SPÖ was able to benefit from this in the short term, but internal quarrels caused the Social Democrats to decline again.

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FPÖ on the rise again after the Ibiza scandal

Meanwhile, the FPÖ has worked its way up and took the lead in early 2023. Since then, the Freedom Party has remained the strongest party in the polls, albeit with slight declines. The SPÖ fell somewhat in favor of voters, but the trend for the ÖVP has been upwards again since the middle of this year.

Uncertainty factor beer party

It is completely unclear whether the beer party, which is running for the first time this year, will make it into the National Council. However, poll numbers are always snapshots and, especially in recent years, they have rather inaccurately predicted the actual election results. The tension is all the greater as to who will celebrate tonight and who will have less reason to celebrate.

Support with legal and technical questions

Magdalena Bigonski, state returning officer and chairwoman of the state electoral authority, and her team support the municipalities with legal and technical inquiries and ensure that election day runs smoothly. Something about questions about the validity of individual votes, where a legal assessment can then be given.

Cyber ​​attacks against parties again on election day

Nationwide, more than six million eligible voters can decide on the future composition of the National Council in Sunday’s election. The polling stations have been open since early morning and voting is in full swing. At the same time, there were again cyber attacks on party websites on Sunday.

A week after hackers paralyzed the online presence of the ÖVP, SPÖ and KPÖ, there were again DDoS attacks on party websites on the day of the National Council election. This time, federal and state organizations of the ÖVP and NEOS were affected, as the parties confirmed on Sunday in response to an APA request. About half of the NEOS sites were down. DDoS attacks cause outages by overloading the network, but do no other damage. More in Renewed hacker attacks on party websites (news.ORF.at).

Almost 1.1 million eligible voters in Upper Austria

In Upper Austria, exactly 1,097,763 people are eligible to vote. In Schönau im Mühlkreis (Freistadt district), the country’s first polling station opened at 6:45 a.m., and people could vote in the communities and cities until 4 p.m.

In smaller towns, election day ends earlier for voters – you can find detailed information about election day here.

New postal voting record

As in previous elections, many voters this year decided to apply for a voting card. According to a release from the Ministry of the Interior, municipalities nationwide had issued a total of 1,436,240 voting cards by midday on Friday. In 2019 there were just over a million, in 2017 around 889,000.

FPÖ has recently been the strongest force in surveys

It is considered impossible for a single competing party to win more than half of the 183 National Council seats.

The survey results from the last few years clearly show how strongly voters’ opinions have changed again and again. The ÖVP started at a historic high, but then plummeted after Sebastian Kurz’s resignation. The SPÖ was able to benefit from this in the short term, but internal quarrels caused the Social Democrats to decline again.

Meanwhile, the FPÖ has worked its way up and took the lead in early 2023. Since then, the Freedom Party has remained the strongest party in the polls, albeit with slight declines. The SPÖ fell somewhat in favor of voters, but the trend for the ÖVP has been upwards again since the middle of this year.

Election forecasts are often inaccurate

It is completely unclear whether the beer party, which is running for the first time this year, will make it into the National Council. However, poll numbers are always snapshots and, especially in recent years, they have rather inaccurately predicted the actual election results. The tension is all the greater as to who will celebrate in the evening and who will have less reason to celebrate.