A day or two have passed in Austria since the decision was made to push back the Presidential election.
For those who don't remember.....back in April of this year....they ran the primary for various parties and the top two parties to win....were to have a final Presidential vote in May. That May election occurred and the Green Party candidate won (2,251,517 votes) against the right-wing party....the Freedom Party....which got 2,220,654 votes. Yeah, it was fairly close. Oddly, 164,000 votes were declared invalid (for various reasons).
A Constitutional Court held a meeting later, and declared the election....null and void. They were supposed to another vote here in October, but things got screwed up on that election....so it's in early December now for the vote.
There were two things pointed out today by BR, the Bavarian state-run TV network, which I thought was kinda interesting.
First, as each month is added onto the election.....more and more Austrians turn 16 (the legal voting age). So they show up and register. The best guess on added voters between now and December? 45,000. Course, there are folks who will pass away between now and then. So I'm not so sure about a bigger number occurring. More young folks voting Green than the Freedom Party? Yeah, that's a fair possibility.
But the second thing is that folks around Austria....as BR points out.....have gotten use to this idea of having no real presidency around. To be honest, it hasn't been a big deal.
It has to worry some political folks because they like to hype up the fact that Presidents are so vital to democracies existing around the globe. And Austria has kinda proven that they ran the government without any trouble.
The odds of a screw-up and another election? Last year, it'd be a million to one odds. Today....I'd say it's one chance in ten that they will screw-up yet again, and trigger another election.
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