Voting in Switzerland is the process with which Swiss citizens make decisions about governance and elect officials.

Switzerland has about 7 million inhabitants; 5.6 million are Swiss citizens who have the right to vote although some cantons and municipalities have granted the right to vote to foreigners if they have lived a certain number of years in Switzerland. The word citizen may refer to: A person with a citizenship Citizen Watch Co. ... A canton is: a territorial subdivision of a country (especially cantons of Switzerland, Costa Rica and France, see canton (subnational entity), and of vingtaines in Jersey. ...

Switzerland is unique because all votes are cast using paper ballots that are counted manually. Every municipality randomly recruits a number of citizens who have the duty of counting the ballots, but penalties for disobeying this duty have become rare. Until several years ago, some cantons even punished citizens for not voting (with a fine equivalent to $3 US.)

About four times a year, voting occurs over various issues. These votes take place during the weekend. Federal, cantonal and municipal issues are polled simultaneously, and the majority of people casts their votes by mail; only a handful of citizens actually visits the voting booths on Saturday evening and Sunday morning.

Only 25 to 45 percent of all mature citizens cast their votes (this number depends on the matter. Controversial proposals (like EU membership or abolishing the army) get voter turnouts of about 60%.

Voting procedure

There is no voter registration in Switzerland. The municipalities know the addresses of their citizens, and about two months before the polling date they send them a letter containing an envelope (with the word "Ballots" on it), a small booklet informing them about the proposed changes in the law and finally the ballots themselves. The voters fill out their ballots, put them in the "Ballots" envelope, and put this envelope again in the envelope that contained all these papers. When the letter arrived at the voter, the letter showed an address sticker with the voter's address; and the voter removes the address sticker and affixes it to another corner of the letter, thus revealing the postal address of the voting office. After signing the letter (as an authentification), he sends the entire package to the voting office of the municipality.

Voting machines

There are no voting machines in Switzerland; all votes are counted by hand. However, after people sort the ballots (e.g. "yes" and "no"), and then the total number of "yes" and "no" then the votes are counted by an automatic counter (like the ones used in banks to count banknotes); or the ballots are weighed by a precision balance.

Design of the ballots

Elections

Parliamentary elections

If people are running for an executive position, there are several ballots the voter is sent. Every party makes up its own voting list, but the voter can either make a list of his or her own or they can make some changes to a party-proposed lists.

If people are running for parliament, the ballot shows as many lines as there are posts to fill. The following rules apply:

• Each candidate can appear once or twice on a ballot.
• A candidate's name can be deleted.
• One or more candidates from another list can be added to a party list. For example, one can remove a candidate from the Social Democrat list and replace him with one from the Liberals.

Each time a candidate's name appears on the list, a vote is counted for the particular candiate. If a voter uses a ready-made party list, additionally a party vote is cast for the specific party.

The parliament is elected by a procedure called proportional election ("Proporzwahl"), because each party gets a number of parliament seats proportional to its success at the party votes.

Elections to fill vacancies at the executive branch

The voters can also vote for the government of each canton. The ballot has only one line where the voter has to place the full name of any mature citizen that lives in the said canton. There are no party votes, only candidates votes; so this procedure is called majority election ("Majorzwahl") where the candidate with the most votes wins.

Referenda

To each proposal there is a box on the ballot which the voter has to fill with either a "Yes" or a "No". If there are proposals that contradict each other, there is a also a tie-break question: "If both proposals are adopted by the people, which proposal do you favor?"

If there is a referendum on changing the text of the Swiss constitution, there are also cantonal votes. Each canton has one vote, but so-called half-cantons (because they were so historically split centuries ago) have a half vote each. In the case that a change of the constitution is adopted, both the majority of the Swiss citizens and the majority of the cantons have to agree. The canton vote is determined through a popular vote among the people of that canton; if the majority supports a proposal then the entire canton supports the proposal.

This cantonal vote means that small cantons are represented equally with the big ones. Basel-Champagne as a canton has about 256,000 inhabitants, but has only half a cantonal vote (the other "half canton" is Basel-City). On the other side, there is the canton of Uri which has a full cantonal vote, but only 35,000 inhabitants. In the case that the majority of the cantons should approve a constitutional change with a great probability, there must be a majority of about 60% in the Swiss-wide popular vote.