On May 22, Austria held its run-off presidential election. Alexander Van der Bellen, a member of the Green Party, and the leader of the party in the recent past, won with 50.3% of the vote. His ballot label was “independent”. See this wikipedia article about him.
This is probably the first time a member of the Green Party has won a nationwide vote for any office, anywhere in the world. Here is the wikipedia article about the election. The first round was held on April 24. A runoff was needed because no one got a majority in April. This is the first Austrian election since World War II in which neither major party won the presidency.
It kinda ruins it that the ballot label didn’t say “Green”.
NONPARTISAN elections for ALL elected executive officers and all judges —
Approval Voting — pending Number Votes with App.V. tiebreaker.
The wiki article on the election results stated that 3.6% of votes were invalid. Not sure what constitutes an “invalid” vote, but wow that is a high percentage of votes and especially in an election decided by .6%.
In a Presidential runoff, “invalid” might mean someone refused to vote for either of the two candidates on the runoff ballot and wrote in their own party’s candidate even if write-ins weren’t going to count or be counted.
Whew. Neo-fascism almost prevailed in western Europe. But it may be coming to a country near you.