Weinviertel (National Council electoral district)

Weinviertel was one 43 regional electoral districts (regionalwahlkreise) established by the "National Council Electoral Regulations 1992" (Nationalrats-Wahlordnung 1992) passed by the National Council in 1992.^[4] It consisted of the districts of Gänserndorf, Hollabrunn, Korneuburg and Mistelbach in the state of Lower Austria.^[5] The district was initially allocated six seats in May 1993.^[6] Electoral regulations require the allocation of seats amongst the electoral districts to be recalculated following each national census and in September 2002 the number of seats allocated to Weinviertel was increased to seven based on the population as at the 2001 national census.^[7]

The Greater Vienna District, which was part of the Greater Vienna regional electoral district, was dissolved in January 2017 and the municipality of Gerasdorf bei Wien to the north-east of Vienna was transferred to Korneuburg District in Weinviertel whilst the entire Gänserndorf District was transferred from Weinviertel to the newly created Lower Austria East regional electoral district.^[8][9] As a result, the number of seats allocated to Weinviertel was reduced to five in February 2017.^[10]

Weinviertel currently elects five of the 183 members of the National Council using the open party-list proportional representation electoral system.^[11][12][13] The allocation of seats is carried out in three stages.^[14] 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).^[15][16] 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).^[15][16] 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).^[15][16] 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.^[15][16]

Electors may cast one preferential vote for individual candidates at the regional, state and federal levels.^[16] 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.^[16][17] 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).^[17] Prior to April 2013 electors could not cast preferential votes at the federal level and the thresholds candidates needed to over-ride the party list order were higher at the regional level (half the Hare quota or 1⁄6 of the party votes) and state level (Hare quota).^[16][18][19]