Federal Court to hear appeals against Swiss e-ID vote

Appeals against e-ID vote to be heard by the Federal Supreme Court Keystone-SDA

The numerous complaints against the vote on the electronic proof of identity (e-ID) will be a case for the Swiss Federal Court.

The Bernese government did not consider itself responsible for the complaints in its canton. In Zurich, too, the cantonal government did not respond to an appeal.

The Bernese cantonal government did not deal with the complaints on the merits, but referred them to the Federal Court. An employee of the state chancellery confirmed a report by Swiss public radio, SRF, on Thursday. The Zurich cantonal government also decided not to accept a complaint lodged by the Mass-Voll movement and to forward the case to the Federal Court in Lausanne.

+ Five lessons from Swiss voters’ acceptance of e-ID

The complaints were triggered by the fact that Swisscom had financially supported the Yes campaign. The result of the vote on September 28 was also extremely close, with 50.39% in favour. Experts therefore consider an intervention by the Federal Court to be potentially possible.

The majority of Swisscom shares are held by the federal government by law. It is therefore considered a “federally related company”. According to the case law of the Federal Court, state-affiliated companies are “fundamentally obliged to maintain political neutrality”.

Translated from German by DeepL/ts

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