Extraparliamentary parties involved in the 2008 Austrian legislative election and the Communist Party of Austria, which has contested all elections in Austria since 1945, a number of other parties stated they planned to or were considering contesting the election. Parties require either the signatures of 3 MPs or the signatures 2,600 citizens (proportionally divided among the different states: 100 in Burgenland and Vorarlberg, 200 in Carinthia, Salzburg and Tyrol, 400 in Styria and Upper Austria and 500 in Lower Austria and Vienna) between 29 July 2008 and 22 August 2008 in order to stand. The signatures have to come from citizens who are eligible to vote in the election;
Burgenland Croatian in 1987 parts of the law were changed and Croatian was introduced as an official in 6 out of 7 districts of Burgenland. Burgenland Croatian written language is based mainly on the local Chakavian dialect with some influences from the other Croatian dialects spoken in Burgenland. It uses the Latin alphabet with the same diacritical modifiers as the Croatian alphabet. In the course of language development it acquired some of its own specialised vocabulary, sometimes different from that used in standard Croatian. The popular "The Little Prince" has also been translated into Burgenland Croatian (1998), specifically the Standard version by