New record!

More than a third of Viennese are not allowed to vote

(Bild: APA/HANS KLAUS TECHT)

The proportion of the Viennese population eligible to vote has been falling continuously for years. This year, a new record has been set: In the provincial and municipal elections on April 27, more than a third of Viennese will not be allowed to vote due to a lack of Austrian citizenship.

While in the 1980s more than 90 percent of adults in Vienna were still eligible to vote, the proportion fell below 80 percent for the first time in the 2010 election despite the lowering of the voting age to 16. In the 2015 municipal elections, more than a quarter of Viennese of voting age were already excluded from the right to vote. Only around 70 percent of people living in Vienna were called to vote in the Vienna municipal elections five years ago.

More than a third of those not entitled to vote come from the European Union. Although the approximately 260,000 EU citizens living in Vienna are allowed to vote in the district council elections, unlike in other municipalities they are not allowed to vote for the municipal council because in Vienna this is also the state parliament and participation in state parliament elections is reserved for Austrian citizens in accordance with the constitution. 

Within Vienna, the proportion of non-eligible voters is unevenly distributed: It is highest in the Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus district at 45.9 percent, followed by Favoriten (44.2) and Brigittenau (44.4). At the other end of the spectrum is Vienna-Hietzing with 24.5 percent.

Vienna on the way to becoming a "half democracy"
There have been warnings for years that the rising proportion of people not entitled to vote is a democratic problem. The organization SOS Mitmensch says that Vienna is on the way to becoming "half a democracy" because, according to its forecast, only every second person will be eligible to vote in 2050. The NGO, which will once again organize a symbolic "Pass Egal Wahl" in the run-up to the Vienna elections, sees the problem not only in immigration, but also in the restrictive access to Austrian citizenship. The new three-party coalition is also unlikely to change this; according to the government program, the requirements for knowledge of German are to be made even stricter. Only people with urgently needed professions are to have their financial requirements eased.