Swiss abroad miss out on vote

Up to 2,000 Swiss citizens living abroad were effectively deprived of their vote in the 2007 parliamentary elections.

The Federal Chancellery, revealing the problem on Monday, said that in many cases this was because voters had not received the necessary documents in time.

All citizens are registered in one of the Swiss communes which are responsible for getting the material to them. Despite the fact that there is a special legal provision allowing it to be dispatched early to voters abroad, this had not always been used, and some had even been sent by second class post.

In other cases the material had been sent in the wrong language, so voters lacked sufficient information. The material can be requested in any of Switzerland’s three official languages, German, French and Italian.

The Chancellery has now written to all the cantons asking them to point out these shortcomings to the communes, to ensure that Swiss living abroad do not face the same problems in future elections.

At its annual gathering this weekend the Organisation of the Swiss Abroad repeated its demand for electronic voting, which it says will solve the problem.