Lower Austria East (National Council electoral district)

Lower Austria East was established in 2016 from parts of Lower Austria South East and Weinviertel following the re-organisation of the regional electoral districts in Lower Austria to reflect the new administrative district structure.^[4] It consisted of the districts of Bruck an der Leitha and Gänserndorf in the state of Lower Austria.^[5] The district was initially allocated four seats in February 2017.^[6]

Lower Austria East currently elects four of the 183 members of the National Council using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system.^[7][8][9] The allocation of seats is carried out in three stages.^[10] In the first stage, seats are allocated to parties (lists) at the regional level using a state-wide Hare quota (wahlzahl) (valid votes in the state divided by the number of seats in the state).^[11][12] In the second stage, seats are allocated to parties at the state/provincial level using the state-wide Hare quota (any seats won by the party at the regional stage are subtracted from the party's state seats).^[11][12] In the third and final stage, seats are allocated to parties at the federal/national level using the D'Hondt method (any seats won by the party at the regional and state stages are subtracted from the party's federal seats).^[11][12] Only parties that reach the 4% national threshold, or have won a seat at the regional stage, compete for seats at the state and federal stages.^[11][12]

Electors may cast one preferential vote for individual candidates at the regional, state and federal levels.^[12] Split-ticket voting (panachage), or voting for more than one candidate at each level, is not permitted and will result in the ballot paper being invalidated.^[12][13] At the regional level, candidates must receive preferential votes amounting to at least 14% of the valid votes cast for their party to over-ride the order of the party list (10% and 7% respectively for the state and federal levels).^[13]