Right to vote in local elections in Lower Austria

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Active Right to vote
Legal requirements for the right to vote in the municipal elections in Lower Austria are

  • Austrian citizenship or the citizenship of an EU member state,
  • Completion of 16 years of age on election day,
  • no grounds for exclusion from elections (criminal conviction),
  • Ordinary Residence (ordentlicher Wohnsitz) in the municipality concerned on the day of the legal announcement of elections (reference date - Stichtag).


Municipal Electoral Roll
The municipal electoral rolls are to be kept by the municipalities for a scheduled municipal
election in accordance with the above-mentioned criteria for the right to vote. The electoral
rolls are based on existing registration data. The completed registers form the basis for the
election, so anyone who is registered in a completed municipal electoral roll can take part in the election. 


Passive Right to vote
All persons who meet the requirements for active right to vote and who have reached the age of 18 by the election day at the latest are eligible for election to the municipal council. This therefore also applies to citizens of EU member states. There are reasons for the exclusion of the right to vote due to a criminal conviction, which are stricter than for the active right to vote. 
Only Austrian citizens can be elected to the office of mayor or as a member of the municipal executive board resp. city council (Gemeindevorstand bzw. Stadtrat). 

of residence in the central registers, no documents are generally required.
The procedure for correcting the electoral roll requires the submission of supporting
documents. (see procedure)

Requests to rectify the electoral roll may be submitted 10 days after it was published, but no later than 4 p.m. on the last day of the deadline. 

The legal bases for local election law in Lower Austria is the Federal Constitutional Act
(Bundes-Verfassungsgesetz, B-VG), the Lower Austrian Municipal Code (NÖ
Gemeindeordnung, GO) and the Lower Austrian Local Council Election Code (NÖ
Gemeinderatswahlordnung, GRWO).

The electoral rolls are to be made available to the public by the municipal election authority
for 5 working days three weeks after the announcement of the election. For this purpose, a
reasoned request for correction may be submitted within ten days of the start of the period of publication. 

Presentation of the supporting documents required to prove that the criteria for the right to vote have been met, in any case the voters' registration sheet (Wähleranlageblatt, see Link to form). 

Local Election Authority (municipality)

An appeal against the decision of the local election authority on the application for correction is admissible within three days to the Lower Austrian administrative court. 

14.12.2020



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Letzte Änderung dieser Seite: 10.3.2021
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