Measures against Swiss ‘signatures scam’ appear to have an effect

Federal Chancellor Viktor Rossi says the number of suspected forged signatures has fallen again. Keystone-SDA

The measures taken to prevent forged signatures being used for people's initiatives in Switzerland appear to be having an impact. Federal Chancellor Viktor Rossi says the number of suspected forged signatures has fallen again.

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“I am confident that we have passed the peak,” said Rossi in an interview with the SonntagsZeitung and Le Matin Dimanche newspapers published on Sunday.

The recently publicised criminal charges against five signature collections for initiatives date back to a time before the new measures.

“So we still have a legacy here,” said Rossi. It cannot be ruled out that further criminal charges will follow. The 21,000 allegedly forged signatures associated with this were discovered thanks to a newly applied dual control principle.

Rossi stressed that there was still no reliable evidence that a referendum petition had gone to a vote thanks to forged signatures.

Code of conduct in progress

At the beginning of September, Tamedia newspapers reported that thousands of signatures for people’s initiatives in Switzerland had allegedly been forged. The Federal Chancellery filed the first criminal charges in 2022 and has since added several new suspected cases.

In response to the news reports, the Federal Chancellery set up a round table meeting and announced in mid-January that it was in the process of developing a code of conduct with various stakeholders.

Checks on the counting of signatures have also been stepped up. The Federal Chancellery is also in contact with the scientific community to examine technical solutions to protect the collection of signatures against fraud. The federal government has so far spoken out against a ban on paid collections.

Adapted from German by DeepL/sb

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