Digital democracy: will Swiss signature scandal pave way for e-collecting?

Noémie Roten is the director of the Service Citoyen association. Here she shows the signature sheet for her popular initiative. Keystone / Anthony Anex

In autumn 2024, allegations emerged that a company had systematically faked signatures in support of people’s initiatives. Since then, calls for online signature collection have gained momentum in Switzerland. Meanwhile, a look at the situation in California shows that public trust is a key factor in the digitalisation of direct democracy.

“Even in the best democracy in the world, incidents like this can happen,” says Noémie Roten, who uncovered a major scandal in Switzerland’s democratic institutions.

“Wake-up calls” are not a bad thing, she believes, as they remind citizens of the need to keep a sharp eye on the state. It is also a good sign when institutions question themselves.

In 2023, Roten’s association,Service Citoyen, filed a criminal complaint after discovering that a company, whose services it had enlisted to gather signatures in support of a people’s initiative, had handed in what turned out to be a large number of fake signatures. At first this fact was not made public.

This changed one year later following an investigation by the Swiss media group Tamedia. It revealed that many of the signatures collected for initiatives – by all political camps, on issues ranging from environmental protection to migration policy – are suspected of being fraudulent. One commercial company in particular is under scrutiny.

Did issues reach ballot box without enough backing?

A senior official from canton Vaud told Tamedia he assumed that a high number of fake signatures went undetected. A campaign consultant even said he was certain that “some” initiatives only got voted on thanks to invalid signatures. This suspicion has now taken hold in the Swiss political system, which is often perceived as flawless.

The Federal Chancellery – the government’s staff office – lodged a complaint about suspicious signatures already in 2022, although the public only learnt about this through the Tamedia investigation. In early 2025, the Federal Chancellery announced that it had filed new charges regarding 21,000 suspected forged signaturesExternal link, collected after the scandal had erupted.

The expression “signature scam” was declared Swiss word of the year in 2024. It was also the first year that an EU country, Romania, cancelled the result of its presidential election, at the behest of the Constitutional Court, because of foreign influenceExternal link in the campaign.

Signature collectors for popular initiatives and referendums are part of the street scene in Switzerland. Even if they are rarely dressed up as Helvetia and William Tell, as here in 2014 during a campaign for the “Sovereign Money Initiative”. Keystone/Gian Ehrenzeller

The expression “signature scam” was declared Swiss word of the year in 2024. It was also the first year that an EU country, Romania, cancelled the result of its presidential election, at the behest of the Constitutional Court, because of foreign influenceExternal link in the campaign.

In the Swiss signature scam, the outcome of the voting has not been called into question. What is in doubt it whether the initiatives had enough support to be voted on at all. 

“The ballot goes ahead anyway,” says Roten, who is not concerned about the security of Swiss voting results.

Model democracy in ‘information war’

But Switzerland’s reputation has suffered. Internationally, the country is seen as a stable, model democracy. It must also be remembered, Roten cautions, that “we are in the grips of an information war”. News like this is being used “to question the credibility of democracy”.

Some foreign media have relished jolting the perfect image of Switzerland, she says. “At the same time, I see it as a strength of our system that such scandals come out into the open at all.”

Roten is optimistic that Switzerland will learn from the scandal – and she is firmly convinced that it has to.

In many countries, candidates must collect a certain number of signatures to stand for election. Allegations of forged signatures also regularly crop up internationally as a result. This was the case, for instance, in IrelandExternal link in 2023, and in the 2024 election campaigns in South AfricaExternal link and the US state of MichiganExternal link, where five governor hopefuls were knocked out of the running because of thousands of fraudulent signatures.

What can Switzerland do about suspect signatures?

Roten noticed the accumulation of suspicious signatures thanks to the semi-automated, digital system used by the initiative committee to record the signatures. “This served as an early warning system,” she says, as it showed exactly where the forged signatures had come from. The detective work was nonetheless challenging for the small association.

Forging signatures is a criminal offence in Switzerland. Following the scandal, an online platform was set up on which municipalities can report invalid or suspicious signatures. This helps provide “an up-to-date and comprehensive picture of the situation” and can reveal regional patterns, the Federal Chancellery told SWI swissinfo.ch on request. New findings from this tool then feed into the ongoing criminal proceedings.

The Federal Chancellery stresses that it has taken numerous measures, including holding a round-table discussion, revising guidelines and engaging in dialogue with the scientific community.

But what is still missing, Roten says, is a kind of “whistleblower platform” as well as resources for committees that take on this detective work.

Up to $30 per signature in the US

In Switzerland, a handful of companies shape the small market for paid signatures. In the United States, the market is much bigger. There, signatures must be collected by candidates seeking election and – in states with direct-democratic features – to bring about referendums and initiatives. According to National Public RadioExternal link, it is not uncommon for a single signature to cost up to $30 (CHF26.50).

A debateExternal link is therefore also under way in the US about the impact on democracy of paid signature gatherers.

In Switzerland prices are lower, although they have gone up since the Covid-19 pandemic and can reach CHF7.50 ($8.50) per signature. Even so, compared with the cost of the subsequent voting campaign, paying professional companies to collect 10,000 to 20,000 of the required 100,000 signatures represents a relatively small outlay for the initiating committees.

Consequences of banning commercial signature collection

“I also personally collected 1,000 signatures for our cause,” Roten says. But for a small association without a large party or powerful organisation behind it, an issue can be brought to the ballot only if the people involved can devote their free time to it – or if paid collectors are called on. 

This is why Roten is against a ban on the commercial collection of signatures, as it would “exclude part of the population that simply cannot afford to volunteer”.

Organisations with a large member base, such as trade unions, can mobilise many people to canvas for them. Smaller groups, which may also have fewer polarising causes, have a harder time.

The Swiss parliament is currently facing a growing number of motions and questions about how to tackle the problem of forged signatures. One idea is that signatures should be collected online.

For some time now, various groups in Switzerland have been calling for this.

The impression created by the “signature scam” – that physical signatures are not secure – is giving impetus to these demands.

The Federal Chancellery is currently working on laying the “foundations for limited, practical trials” of digital signature collection, known as e-collecting, it told SWI swissinfo.ch. This also gives rise to new “unanswered questions” about “preventing abuse”.

What would e-collecting mean for Swiss democracy?

A studyExternal link commissioned by the government in 2023 examined what impact e-collecting could have on Swiss democracy. It concluded that, contrary to what some people fear, the convenience of collecting signatures from home would not trigger a flood of initiatives, although it would most probably lead to more popular votes. “However, the increase is likely to be small,” the study found.

E-collecting could also “somewhat mitigate” the disadvantages faced by players with few resources, while digitally savvy parts of the population would have a slight upper hand.

And if more votes did come about thanks to digital signature collection, this could “also be seen as a revitalisation of the political system and a strengthening of democratic dialogue”, the study concluded.

Scant international experience

“We have woken up in a new Switzerland,” activist Daniel Graf told BeobachterExternal link magazine shortly after the scandal broke. He has long been calling for digital signature collection.

His voice is one of many that have grown louder since autumn 2024. To listen to the debate, one might think Switzerland lagged behind other countries in this field. But there is also great reluctance elsewhere.

While it is possible to sign a citizens’ initiative online in the European Union, this political instrument is so weak that it has no political impactExternal link. And in the United States, Utah is the only state that allows signaturesExternal link to be collected electronically for an initiative, referendum or candidate qualification.

No initiative without commercial collection companies in California

In California, where people vote at least as often as in Switzerland, an e-collecting initiative failed to get off the ground some years ago already at the signature collection stage. “Yes, it’s ironic. And part of a vicious circle,” says Emily Schultheis, who reports on direct democracy in California for the US political digital newspaper Politico.

Emily Schultheis is a Politico reporter covering referendums in California. Thomas Trutschel / Photothek.de

In California, Schultheis explains, collecting the necessary signatures for an initiative is nearly impossible without resorting to paid companies. “This is the main difference to Switzerland,” she says.

The number of signatures required is around two-and-a-half times higher in relation to the population, and the collection time is three times shorter: it is 18 months in Switzerland, and 180 days in California.

According to Schultheis, many people in California also view the collection companies with a degree of scepticism, although no scandals have erupted like in Switzerland. People can see, however, how companies suddenly disappear and reappear under a different name.

Schultheis says it can also be painful for Californians to realise that the people canvassing for signatures in the street are not dedicated defenders of a cause, but that they are paid for what they do.

She says initiative committees in California budget around $8 million to $10 million to pay the collectors. “Californians like the initiative process, but they think it’s too expensive, too opaque and not easy to get involved,” she says.

Personally, she thinks e-collecting could help change this. “The goal of direct democratic tools is to give people the opportunity to get directly involved, propose legislation and focus on issues they feel are being neglected.” Collecting signatures digitally could strengthen this process, she believes.

California teacher, firefighter and nursing unions celebrate a 2005 vote result. Keystone/AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

US crisis of confidence makes e-collecting unrealistic

Schultheis is not optimistic, however, that California will introduce e-collecting any time soon. “The entire United States is engulfed in a crisis of confidence at various levels.” 

Any proposals to digitalise democracy would have a hard time, she believes. “The accusations of fraud by the new president and his allies have made Republicans less trusting of the system – and even less so of any changes that a Democrat government like the one in California might introduce.” Californians receive their voting documents on paper and they sign on paper. This is not likely to change in the foreseeable future.

Even if digital signatures can be verified centrally, many people still trust paper more. To date, the Swiss Federal Chancellery has no information on the impact of digital signature collection on public trust. This can be found out only by conducting practical trials, it says.

Edited by David Eugster. Adapted from German by Julia Bassam/ts