Some Statistics concerning the Austrian Presidential Election 2016

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the 2016 Austrian presidential election, demonstrating that despite irregularities in vote counting, the probability of reversing the result is extremely low, supporting the decision to repeat the election.

Contribution

It provides a statistical assessment of the impact of irregular votes on the election outcome, supporting legal decisions with quantitative analysis.

Findings

Irregular votes constituted 77,769 ballots.

The probability of irregular votes reversing the result is extremely low.

Supports the court's decision to repeat the election based on statistical evidence.

Abstract

The 2016 Austrian presidential runoff election has been repealed by the Austrian constitutional court. The results of the counted votes had yielded a victory of Alexander van der Bellen by a margin of 30.863 votes as compared to the votes for Norbert Hofer. However, the constitutional court found that 77.769 votes were "contaminated" as there have been -- at least on a formal level - violations of the legal procedure when counting those votes. For example, the envelopes were opened prematurely, or not all the members of the electoral board were present during the counting etc. Hence the court considered the scenario that the irregular counting of these votes might have caused a reversal of the result as possible. The constitutional court sentenced that this possibility presents a sufficient irregularity in order to order a repetition of the entire election. While it is, of course, possible that the irregular counting of those 77.769 votes reversed the result, we shall show that the probability, that this indeed has happened, is ridiculously low.