[1] During his secondary studies, Pernerstorfer personally met Victor Adler, a founding figure of the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Austria.

[2] In the 1885 elections, he became a member of the Imperial Council (National Legislature), where he represented the city curia, the Vienna New Town district, Neunkirchen, etc.

Although he initially entered as an independent candidate, he later joined the Vereinigte Deutsche Linke club, to which several prominent German left-liberals belonged.

[3] Already at that time he openly sympathized with pan-Germanism and showed strong anti-Slavic sentiments, being in favor of the complete Germanization of Austria and one of the authors of the Linz Program of 1882.

In 1890, he is listed as a member of the strongly nationalist club Deutschnationale Vereinigung and used to be an ally of Georg von Schönerer.

He also triumphed in the 1907 elections, already held according to universal and equal suffrage, that is, without curiae, when he won a mandate for the Lower Austrian district 40.