Swiss Abroad Voting Material: These Cantons Sent It Out Too Late

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Voters in Switzerland have been able to fill out their ballot papers for Sunday's federal elections for weeks. Many envelopes have long been returned to the relevant municipality.

But what about the 221,448 Swiss Abroad who are entitled to vote? As with previous elections and votes, we're receiving angry messages from all over the world that the documents have either not arrived or arrived late. In some cases it was no longer possible to return them by post in time.

The Swiss Abroad feel hindered in their democratic participation. This is a fact that regularly leads to parliamentary proposals and amendments. In March, the government published a reportExternal link on exercising the right to vote from abroad, analysing the various attempts to improve the situation.

The dispatching of voting and election documents to the Swiss Abroad is regulated at ordinance level. The material may be sent out at the earliest one week before the official mailing in Switzerland, i.e. six weeks before the ballot. This year, the earliest date for mailing to Swiss citizens abroad was the week beginning September 11 (calendar week 37).

“As in the past, the Federal Council has asked the cantons in its circular letter to the cantonal governments to ensure that the election documents for the Swiss Abroad are sent out before they are officially dispatched within Switzerland,” the Federal Chancellery told us.

We wanted to know from the cantons whether they had complied with this request and when they sent the documents to the Swiss Abroad.

Such a survey is not easy. Fourteen cantons keep the electoral register of the Swiss Abroad on a decentralised basis, in other words each municipality is responsible for doing it. In nine cantons the electoral register is managed by the cantonal administration, while in three cantons responsibility lies with the administration of the cantonal capital.

All 26 cantons responded to SWI swissinfo's enquiry. Twelve of the 14 cantons where the municipalities are responsible for the mailing revealed the cantonal capital's mailing date.

Canton Aargau turned out to be the model pupil. While the earliest possible mailing date set by the government was Monday September 11, Aargau already sent out the documents on Friday September 8, the end of calendar week 36.

Is this a problem? No, says Maria Bühlmann, who manages the canton's Swiss Abroad voting register, confidently. She reckons that from the weekend of the ballot, Friday evening is part of the weekend. Thus, canton Aargau had respected the permitted six weeks before the voting weekend, she says.

“We've scheduled it for years in such a way that we hand over the packed documents to the post office on Friday evening,” she explained, adding that these items would then have to be sorted before the documents could actually be sent out.“In this way I ensure that the documents are not sent out in the course of calendar week 37 but on the first possible day.”

Bühlmann says she thus hopes to give the Swiss Abroad, especially on the other side of the Atlantic, the chance to participate in elections and votes.

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