Austria's presidential election to be decided by mail-in ballots

Alexander Van der Bellen and Norbert Hofer.
(Image credit: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images)

Austria's presidential election will come down to the 750,000 mail-in ballots left to be counted.

The country's interior minister said after counting the ballots cast at polling stations on Sunday, Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party has a slight edge over independent Alexander Van der Bellen, with 51.9 percent of the vote compared to 48.1 percent. The mail-in ballots account for 12 percent of Austria's 6.4 million voters, and they will be counted Monday.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.