Voting behaviour at the Austrian National Council elections
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The tool “Voting Behaviour” depicts voter flows in National Council elections in Austria, starting with the 1919 elections to the Constituent National Assembly. The electoral dynamic analysis was created for the Austrian House of History (HdGÖ). The tool will be developed further and complemented on behalf of the Parliamentary Administration.
Here you can find more details on how SORA calculates such voter flows.
Voter transition analyses show the changes in voters' decisions compared to the previous election. They represent the migrations of voters between candidate parties - or of or to the group of non-voters. So it becomes visible:
Analysis without survey data
FORESIGHT voter transition analyses are based on “aggregate data”, i.e. on the results of districts, municipalities, etc. The statistical relationships calculated there are used to deduce the behavior of the voters.
For instance: If at the current election a party performs on average strong in exactly those communities in which another party in the compared election was strong, FORESIGHT interpretes it as an indication that many voters have changed between these parties.
Method of calculation
The procedure for this is based on probability calculation and is called multiple regression: “regression”, because the party results of the current election are attributed to the party results of the compared election(regressed). “Multiple” because FORESIGHT relates the current election results of one party to the results of all parties at the compared election.
The equation for a voter transition analysis from the national election 2008 to the national election 2013 looks like this for the SPÖ 2013:
SPÖ2013 = b1 × SPÖ2008 + b2 × ÖVP2008 + b3 × FPÖ2008 + b4 × BZÖ2008 + b5 x Grüne2008 + b6 × Other-parties2008 + b7 × Non-voters2008.
With regard to demographic changes, it is assumed for the calculation that the persons entitled to vote remain the same, i.e.. Additions by immigration and first-time voters are equated with departures by removal and deceased. Differences in the number of eligible voters between the two election years considered are compensated by the number of non-voters. If the number of eligible voters increases, these “new” voters in the comparison are considered non-voters.
Extrapolation
The FORESIGHT extrapolation, the assessment of pre-election results, is also based on voter transistion analysis. By means of the voter inflows, which are calculated on the basis of the counted votes, FORESIGHT closes on the overall result.
Behind this is the assumption that trends in socially similar commutities will be similar. In the run-up to the election, therefore, similar groups of parishes must be identified in which comparable voter movements can be expected on election day.
Due to the electoral secrecy voter transistion analyzes can not be validated later. However, comparative studies with so-called exit polls, i.e. polls after a poll, showed that the described method based on aggregate data is very reliable.
Further literature
After the elimination of parliament in 1933, the Republic of Austria was rebuilt into a dictatorship. The 1934 adopted constitution abolished the National Council officially, it was therefore not elected.
1938 Austria was incorporated into the National Socialist German Reich. During the Nazi regime, no democratic elections were held. The parliament building on Vienna's Ringstraße was taken over by the NSDAP and used for the administration and representation of the party. After the liberation in 1945, the first task of a provisional government, together with the Allied administration, was to prepare the first National Council elections of the Second Republic.
On 25 November 1945, the first free federal and provincial elections take place since the end of democracy in Austria in 1933. Voter turnout is over 94 per cent. The approximately 500,000 former members of the NSDAP are not eligible to vote.
The Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) wins an absolute majority of seats in the National Council with 49.8 per cent of the vote. The Socialist Party of Austria (SPÖ) is also successful with 44.6 per cent of the vote. The Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) is a distant third with 5.4 per cent.
A few weeks after the elections, on 19 December, the National Council and the Federal Council are constituted. One day later, the Federal Assembly elects former Chancellor Karl Renner (SPÖ) as Federal President. On the same day, the coalition government under Leopold Figl (ÖVP) of the ÖVP, SPÖ and KPÖ is sworn in.
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