Appeal, refusal, deletion of the candidate from the list

(1) Election candidates who were not elected or did not accept being elected, as well as those who accepted their seat but subsequently resigned from it, remain on the party list (regional party list, provincial party list, federal party list) as long as they have not explicitly demanded to be deleted from it (para 4). When a member of the federal government or a secretary of state give up their seat in the National Council, an unelected candidate from the respective party list has to be appointed to replace them. After withdrawing from this office, in the cases described in art. 71 of the Federal Constitutional Law, Federal Law Gazette No. 1/1930, after the lifting of the administrative commission, the seats of these candidates are renewed by the elections authorities responsible, as long as they do not declare to the same elections authorities within eight days that they do not accept a renewal of their seat. In this way, the election candidate who received the seat of the member of parliament who has temporarily withdrawn from this office is put on the list of unsuccessful candidates, as long as they have not requested to be deleted from the party list. In case another member of parliament should feature on the list of candidates of the same party, they receive the seat in question, provided that they have expressed to the elections authorities their wish to receive the seat. When such a wish was expressed by more than one member of parliament, the one who declared their wish the last is to receive the seat. 

(2) Unsuccessful candidates featuring on a provincial list of candidates are to be appointed to an office by the provincial elections authority. Unsuccessful candidates featuring on the federal list of candidates are to be appointed to an office by the federal elections authority. The order of appointment of unsuccessful regional candidates is determined by the regulations set out in § 98, para 5. The order of appointment of unsuccessful candidates from a provincial party list is determined by the regulations set out in § 102, para 5, and of unsuccessful candidates from the proposals for the federal elections, according to their order of entry in the federal party lists. When a candidate appointed in this way is already elected in a regional constituency, in a provincial constituency or from the federal list of candidates, he or she has to be urged by the elections authorities which are seeking to appoint him to declare, within eight days, which elections proposal he or she chooses to remain on. When no such declaration is presented within the given time period, this decision is made by the elections authorities in question. All elections authorities affected by this decision have to be informed of it. The name of the elections candidate finally appointed is to be announced in conformity with local custom and, in the case of an appointment of a candidate from a provincial list of candidates, is to be reported immediately to the federal elections authority for the purpose of issuing a certificate for elected members of parliament.

(3) In case an election candidate who is to be appointed to a vacant seat should refuse the appointment, he or she still keeps their ranking on the respective party list.

(4) Any candidate appearing in a provincial list of candidates can at any time request the provincial elections authority to be deleted from that proposal.
Deletion from one list (provincial party list or regional party list) is permissible. A candidate appearing in the federal list of candidates can at any time request the federal elections authority to be deleted from that proposal. The deletion has to be announced by the competent elections authority in every case.