241,033 voting cards had been applied for in the municipalities and magistrates by the end of the deadline on Friday, 12 noon, as state returning officer Carmen Breitwieser confirmed to OÖNachrichten. That is around 81 percent more than in the 2015 state elections – back then there were around 133,000 voting cards.
As reported, Breitwieser had already expected on Thursday that there will be more than 200,000 voting cards.
Around 129,000 women applied for voting cards and around 112,000 men. Most of the voting cards were issued in Linz-Stadt (around 29,000) in front of the Vöcklabruck district (22,200) and Linz-Land (21,400)
In general, there is a trend towards postal voting, said Breitwieser’s deputy Josef Gruber. It has been made broader and simpler by lawmakers over the past 15 years, and citizens’ trust in security has also increased. In the 2019 National Council election in Upper Austria, for example, there were already 187,000 voting cards. The corona pandemic is currently increasing demand because some voters avoid staying at the polling station because of a possible risk of infection.
The turnout in the 2015 state elections was just under 82 percent. Should it be back at around 80 percent, 241,000 ballot card voters would be a good quarter of the total number of voters. The total number of eligible voters is around 1.1 million.
