The ins and outs of postal voting in Switzerland

Posting off a ballot in Geneva in 2023: for many Swiss, a regular act of participation. Keystone / Salvatore Di Nolfi

Are you comfortable putting your vote in the letter-box? From the US to Germany, some politicians say you shouldn’t be. In Switzerland, where postal voting is second nature, such debates remain marginal.

“We are now the only country in the world that uses mail-in voting,” US President Donald Trump complained in 2025. The statement was untrue: more than 30 countries use it, either for all or for some voters. But the claim was symbolic of a wider backlash, especially in the US. In Switzerland, by contrast, where postal ballots are the norm, authorities have even cited them as a potential boost to democratic security.

How does postal voting work in Switzerland?

It’s a well-oiled system. Up to four times a year, without having asked for it, voting age citizens in Switzerland get a thick envelope delivered to their letter boxes. Inside is information about an upcoming vote or elections, a ballot paper, and a voter ID card. After considering their options, they can fill out their choice and return the vote – by mail or into a dedicated municipal letter box – or wait to vote in-person on ballot day. They can also bin the lot.

Because it’s so embedded in political life, and so widely used, it’s easy to forget that postal voting in Switzerland is not so old. Analogue to the US, it is managed by cantons: the first ones rolled it out in the 1970s, around the same time California became the first US state to get on board. In 1994, the Swiss federal parliament ruled that mail-in ballots should be available nationwide; by 2005, all 26 cantons had complied. Minor local differences still remain: for example, some places offer free return postage, some don’t.

According to International IDEA, an intergovernmental organisation that promotes democracy worldwide, Switzerland is one of 11 countries offering mail-in ballots to all voters; 21 countries offer it to some citizens, like the elderly or voters abroad. In the US, rules vary by state, which helps explain some of the tension around mail ballots: for years, Trump has engaged in back-and-forth legal and political battles to restrict them, including ahead ofExternal link the November 2026 mid-term elections.

How extensively do Swiss citizens vote by post?

The short answer: very. “Almost everyone votes in advance,” says Alina Zumbrunn from the University of Bern. There are no exact figures, but postal ballots are estimated to account for over 90% of votes nationally; in June 2026, canton Aargau logged a rate of 98%. Neither is it a rural or urban affair: cities like Geneva or Basel have similar rates to rural Obwalden. Those who actually do vote in person are a motley bunch, Zumbrunn adds: those who like the social side of it, or first-time voters, or those who simply forgot to do it by post beforehand.

Internationally, these numbers are high. Some US states with all-mail-in ballots, like Oregon or Washington, have seen Swiss-style rates over 90%, according to the US Election Assistance CommissionExternal link. But nationally, with the exception of Liechtenstein, it’s hard to find any country with a higher overall mail-in ballot rate than Switzerland – even if some countries have made big jumps, not least due to the impetus of the Covid-19 pandemic; Germany logged just under half of votes by post in the 2021 elections.

The speed of adoption in the Alpine nation was also striking, jumping from an estimated half or two-thirdsExternal link of voters in the late 1990s to today’s near-universality. What makes the country so well-suited? One factor is the world-leadingExternal link postal system. There’s also the frequency of votes, Zumbrunn adds – for many, mail-in ballots are easier than trooping down to the polling station four times a year. And there’s the trust factor: Swiss citizens have high faith in their institutions – in this case, their electoral system.

“Yes” or “no”? Making a choice ahead of the June 14, 2026 national votes in Switzerland. Keystone / Christian Beutler

Is there any opposition to it à la Trump?

The thing about trust, says Therese Pearce Laanela from International IDEA, is that it can be “less about the workings of a system itself, and more about people and their relationship to the system”. As such, postal voting can be loved in one place and hated in another, depending on culture, habit, or efforts to undermine trust. In the past years, for example, Trump has periodically sought to restrict mail-in ballots. The far-right Alternative for Germany party wants to do the same.

In Switzerland, however, the issue is “much less politicised”, Zumbrunn says. This is not only due to trust. It’s also because political parties don’t stand to win or lose hugely by attacking it. In the US, Democrats vote by mail more than Republicans. As a result, there is clear political capital, and potentially votes, to be gained or lost. In Switzerland, why criticise a system that everyone – young, old, conservative, liberal – is generally happy with?

That said, it’s not immune to criticism. In late 2025, for instance, Jean-Luc Addor from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party called on parliamentExternal link to boost in-person voting at polling stations, what he called an “act of citizen participation with societal significance”. It’s about “restoring trust and reducing the effect of potential fraud”, Addor said. The Swiss government, however, was not impressed. Postal voting is popular and convenient, it answered, citing usual advantages: accessibility, flexibility and voting from abroad.

>> One group which depends on postal voting is electors abroad – including US citizens based in Switzerland:

Is it as foolproof as all that?

In Switzerland, there is no major evidence to the contrary. Every few months, a couple of million citizens vote by post, and cases of fraud are rare. But as the government acknowledged in its response to Addor, abuse cannot be fully ruled out. For example, an appeal after local elections in November 2025 in Vernier, Geneva, led to the discovery by graphologists that 189 voter ID cards had been filled out by 79 people. The election results were not impacted, but investigations are ongoingExternal link, according to the Swiss public broadcaster RTS.

The Geneva case highlighted an issue with mail-in ballots which is sometimes mentioned but seldom quantified: family members or friends filling out – and deciding – for others. Other potential risks are theft: in canton Valais in 2017, a man was suspected of stealing and filling out 150 votes. Beyond such fraud, meanwhile, there’s the possibility of votes going missing before they’re counted – something that almost never happened in Switzerland.

Zumbrunn says that with concrete cases of abuse rare, trust in the Swiss system remains largely intact. Internationally, however, it can be a balance between what Pearce Laanela from International IDEA calls the “benefits of convenience and concerns about security”. For transitional or new democracies, the “controlled setting” of the polling station is still the “gold standard” for ensuring a safe vote, Pearce Laanela says. Elsewhere, its success depends on various factors – the obvious one being a dependable postal service.

Mail-in ballots are more common in some US states than in others: one heavy user is California (pictured is a processing centre in Los Angeles County). Caroline Brehman / Getty Images

Are there any other democratic advantages to it?

While it can make life easier, postal voting doesn’t necessarily turbo-charge turnout. The convenience of it can help foreign-based and elderly voters, or during a pandemic. But “people also vote for various other reasons, including whether it’s meaningful or a habit,” Pearce Laanela says. In Switzerland, where turnout is generally low, postal voting is estimated to have raised it by around four percentage points since being introduced, Zumbrunn says. Paid postage for mail-in ballots boosts this again by three percentage points, she found in a 2025 studyExternal link.

Other democratic aspects are more intangible. Whether postal voting cheapens the idea of democracy as a “social event” depends on your vision of a social event. Zumbrunn adds that it’s difficult to force such jollity, especially in Switzerland, where democracy is rather a part of everyday life. Meanwhile institutions like municipal assemblies or the Landsgemeinde open-air votes, which are based on the premise of people gathering physically, often have turnout rates lower than the already-low Swiss average.

Finally, in an age of hybrid threats and disinformation, some see new upsides in what is now a well-established system. For the government, the country’s mail-in voting practices could even help democratic stability. They allow “voter participation over several weeks (and not just on a single election day, as in many other Western democracies)”, it wroteExternal link in 2025. Along with voters’ “familiarity” with electoral procedures, and a decentralised organisation, they help “make the system robust and protect against foreign interference”, it said in response to a parliamentary question about potential meddling in the 2027 elections.

>> Postal voting can also make for practical headaches, especially when sending your ballot from overseas:

Edited by Benjamin von Wyl/ac