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Electronic voting in Switzerland started in 2003 in the canton of Geneva, where the residents of Anières cast their vote using the Internet. This was the first trial of e-voting in Switzerland.^[1] In the following years, the number of people able to use electronic voting grew as more and more cantons began adopting such a system.^[2]

The Swiss government has multiple reasons for using electronic voting. It can reduce costs and increase the speed of counting ballots. Swiss living aboard are able to vote more reliably. It could also help raise voter turnout (declining since the 1970s^[3]) since voting over the internet is considered by most to be more convenient.^[4]

There are multiple electronic voting systems used in the country, notably CHVote (open source software developed by Geneva) and sVote (from Swiss Post, proprietary software developed by Scytl).

In 2019, concerns emerged about the security of e-voting. A committee of politicians and computer experts is launching a people's initiative aimed at banning online voting for at least five years, until the system is proven secure.^[5] The controversy grew after researchers from the University of Melbourne discovered Swiss Post's system had a security flaw in its commitment scheme.^[6]

History

^[1]

During the late 1990s, the idea of modernizing elections by providing a remote form of voting spread among European countries. In that matter, Switzerland was no exception, but unlike others it had already been using a form of remote voting systems, the postal voting. It was previously well established that the initialization of postal voting had increased turnout rates by 4 percent on average, and unsurprisingly promoters of internet voting hoped that this new form of voting would quickly get accepted by the voters and ideally further increase the turnout rates especially amongst the young.

In terms of the progression of internet voting, several parliamentary motions were put forward at the beginning of the 2000s. The actual implementation process however was rolled out at a slow rate since it involved numerous evaluations and testing of different models. In this regard, the role of the federal agencies would mostly be limited to facilitating experiments rather than implementing trials, which was what actually happened when Geneva, Neuchatel, and Zurich took up the internet voting challenge and the federal agencies initially only provided financing. The result of this approach is that the three cantons had developed three different internet voting methods. Among these models, those of Geneva and Zurich have only one significant difference, which is that while the Zurich model is operated by a private company the one in Geneva is managed by the canton itself. Neuchatel's system differs from the two in the sense that internet voting is integrated into an e-government portal that required citizens to first register at the municipality. In Geneva and Zurich cases, there is no initial registration required since the voters are mailed the necessary information before every election. The first internet voting trials were conducted in 2003 in a municipality of Geneva, and within two years Zurich and Neuchatel had also held their first trials.

In the early phase of Internet voting trials, Swiss voters abroad were not included. This soon changed when the Swiss government acknowledged its desire to make internet voting available to the large expatriate community. One of the most significant leading factors to this inclusion is the role played by the Organization of the Swiss Abroad (OSA), the main advocacy organization for expatriate interests, which was firmly behind the internet voting initiative. The community of Swiss living abroad was a natural target group since the difficulties they faced while using postal voting were well-known. Also facilitating the process for this group was hoped to further boost the turnout rates since they make up 10 percent of the electorate. Since their low participation and lack of media attention on this group the Swiss abroad were considered to be an ideal test group. Moreover, if this new platform had a significant effect on the turnout rates, it would further strengthen the domestic debate. The legal basis was laid shortly, and by June 2008 Neuchatel had become the first canton to offer internet voting to its community that lives abroad. The two other pioneer cantons were quick to follow with Geneva in 2009 and Zurich in 2010. However, what is interesting is that all Swiss cantons can make internet voting available to their expatriate voters even if their own domestic residents are not yet allowed. By 2009 Basel-City had become the first of the non-pilot cantons to use it for its voters abroad and within a two years timeframe by nine other cantons joined (Argovia, Berne, Fribourg, Grisons, Lucerne, Schaffhausen, Solothurn, St. Gallen, Thurgau).

Although trials were successful in several cantons, in the beginning, the new mode of remote voting was not envisioned to have a smooth transition and was not expected to be widely used in all Swiss cantons before many years. One of the main reasons for this was the different traditions and voting procedures in different cantons. Another reason was the typically slow adoption of new systems in Switzerland. However, in 2019 Swiss Post took an initiative to enable e-voting in the whole of Switzerland.

Usage of Internet Voting (2003–2015)

^[1] The argument that internet voting would increase voter turnout was frequently used in parliamentary debates by advocates; also its high usage would justify the means such as the high financial costs and allocated resources. To keep track of the internet voting usage rates a database was maintained that reported results in as much as detail since the first vote in 2003.

Studies about the evolution of e-voting user rates in the three pilot cantons portrait two main social effects that explain the usage pattern over time; the novelty and the convenience effects. Geneva and Zurich illustrate the novelty effect, where drastic downward falls are observed on the usage rates right after initialization. This fall might be due to some voters testing the new system of voting just because it is new, but then return to their usual voting method due to habits. In the Geneva case, the disadvantageous effect of long-term interruption of e-voting (between 2005 and 2009) on the usage rates is depicted. Before the interruption, rate used to be 20% and afterward it was only 15%. In general, the convenience of the postal voting has kept the internet voting levels low; however, they are speculated to eventually grow as younger voters are much more inclined to use the internet. The fact that the voters in Neuchatel first need to register at the municipality to gain access to the e-government portal had an effect of lack of convenience. However, a small-sized increase in e-voting is observed in 2011, which can be explained by the introduction of the opportunity to file taxes electronically through the same e-government portal, which seem to enticed some citizens to try and use internet voting.

Usage rates of the expatriate have a growth rate of 2% each year. In Neuchatel, the requirement to sign up in person to use the e-government system at the municipality has resulted in lower rates, since this is an even higher burden to those who live abroad. Studies also show that Geneva scores lower than the rest of the cantons, which is speculated to be because of the “fake” expatriates who live just across the border in France to avoid housing prices in Geneva.

The two main conclusions that can be made from these studies are; first, the expiries’ natural higher incentive in e-voting due to convenience is reflected in moderately higher usage rates; second, over the years the online channel has gained popularity among Swiss expatriates in contrast to Swiss residents who tend to drop the new channel after the novelty effect wears out.

Socio-Demographic profile of Internet voters

^[1] Studies are done to assess what is known about internet voters on the individual level and examine their socio-demographic characteristics. The results are based on within-voter comparison which is the differences between internet voters and other voters (postal or ballot box voters)

Advantages and disadvantages

E-voting clearly has both pros and cons and some of the advantages and disadvantages are listed below.^[10]

Case analysis

An important motivation for the Swiss government to pass e-voting is fast changes in information and communications technologies and indeed political life. Switzerland considered e-voting to make participation in elections easier, add new and appealing forms of participation, increase participation rate and protect the democratic principle “one person – one vote” against traditional abuse. Hans-Urs Wili from the Federal Chancellery points out that introduction of e-voting is necessary if direct democracy as it exists today in Switzerland is to be kept alive. The Swiss Government wanted to keep pace with these changes and they started pilot projects for introducing e-voting in the early 2000s. The main approach used by the Swiss government has been to prioritize security instead of the speed of adoption. For this reason, Switzerland started with 3 cantons, Geneva, Neuchatel and Zurich. It was a joint project of the Confederation and the cantons. The Swiss Confederation funded up to %80 of the trials and the results of the projects had to be made public to the other cantons. In 2006 the three pilot projects were evaluated and it was observed that the internet voting system could be used by up to 20% of the cantonal electoral roll (later extended to 30%), and by up to 10% of the Swiss electoral roll.^[9][11][12]

Security measurements

Switzerland doesn't expect e-voting to be %100 secure but it has to be as secure and reliable as the traditional voting methods (i.e. postal voting and voting at polling stations). Articles 27a-27q of the Order on Political Rights indicate security measurements needed to be fulfilled to obtain a secure and reliable system. According to these articles, an e-voting system has to ensure that all the received votes are anonymous and can't be traced. Identifying a voter's vote must be impossible and votes must be encrypted after submission and only decoded when they are to be counted. Voting must remain perfectly anonymous. Furthermore, the voting system must ensure that a vote has been received, and if there is an altered vote, only the newest version is counted. The procedure must not encourage voters to vote without reflection and voters must be able to alter their choice before submitting their vote. ^[16][12]

Additionally, the system must ensure that only entitled voters can take part in the ballot, each voter must have one vote and will vote only once. It must be impossible for any third party to capture, modify or divert votes or influence the result of the ballot or to find out the content of the votes. All the votes cast must be taken into account during the count and that any fraud must be impossible.

Security is not only satisfied with having a secure software. The system also must make sure that the voting process cannot be affected by the technological environment. In this context, the most important problem is whether a computer, which is used to vote, contains any malware. In this case, an attacker may access all the data stored in the computer including any personal information and be able to manipulate them. In the existence of such a malware, elections can be influenced by malware by storing data transmitted during the voting process, simulating the voting process and vote later, or voting at the same time the voter votes. By doing so, these attacks can violate the principle of” one man, one vote” and allow the capture, modification or deviation of electronic votes.

Another important point is that e-voting server where all the votes are stored until counting must be absolutely secure and invulnerable to attacks. If an attacker can reach the main server, he/she can exchange the ballots and influence the main result of the election. If the votes are changed before counting, it is impossible to realize this change in counting. The traditional ballot box at the polling station cannot be manipulated this way. It is opened in front of public and nobody has possibility to exchange the ballot paper before. Similarly, the electoral register must also be secure to avoid attacks which try to manipulate entries.

An election system's principal function is to establish the correct election result based on the votes submitted by the voters and all the irregularities caused by attacks or software bugs must be detected in a reliable way. To verify an election's integrity, protocols ensuring individual and complete verifiability must be implemented, and tests must be done to ensure completeness, integrity, consistency, evidence and authenticity of the voting process. To improve the confidence in e-voting systems, Federal Council also requires publication of the source code of these systems and a public intrusion test is required, which will allow interested parties to try to hack the systems that want to be certified at the third level.^[11]

Opinion of the swiss public

References