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For people not familiar with voting in Switzerland, we already trust the Swiss Post, given that most ballots are mailed in. I've never been at a physical pollin

For people not familiar with voting in Switzerland, we already trust the Swiss Post, given that most ballots are mailed in. I've never been at a physical polling booth in my life, and we vote at least four times a year. We also have an online voting platform already, which has been launched by the canton of Geneva in 2003. It has known several upgrades, security audits, and has been targeted by hackers a few times. It's proven quite successful and it is used by a few cantons besides Geneva. Sadly, due to a lack of federal support, Geneva doesn't want to bear the costs anymore.

sgc 8y ago
Is there a historical list of the items you vote on each election? I am curious to see a real world example of such regular voting.
- oneon 8y ago
  The most broad collection from all cantons was just now published into a smartphone app called VoteInfo, see https://www.admin.ch/ https://www.admin.ch/ site for more details. Otherwise information is usually scattered on the various canton's (districts) websites.
  - sgc 8y ago
    Thanks for the head start. Looking around on admin.ch I found https://www.bk.admin.ch/ch/f/pore/va/vab_2_2_4_1_gesamt.html https://www.bk.admin.ch/ch/f/pore/va/vab_2_2_4_1_gesamt.html with results from 1848-present.
    - transpa-regency 8y ago
      These are the federal subject votes; it does not include federal elections or cantonal/communal votes/elections. So I would guess one has about six topics on average to decide on, 4-5 times a year.
      - sgc 8y ago
        Sometimes I think we need to be realistic and accept that there are populations on the planet which have a hundred - or hundreds - of years of work to evolve past their current mindset. I can think of a number of countries where the general population does not seem to have the capacities for this type of responsibility. If every issue devolves into a a cutthroat battle rather than a serious discussion at the end of which opinions are expressed, society cannot handle regular voting since it is primed for corruption. A deep education on civic duty rather than nationalism is one obvious piece of the puzzle, but also a safety net and affluence where people are not desperate and can remain free of basic economic pressure to conform is another big one. Perhaps the biggest one that I have seen missing from my own country and others is a true desire for personal excellence, one that is even greater than the desire for success. Including philosophy in education from a younger age can help with instilling that mindset. What do you think has helped Switzerland as a society succeed as a democracy?
oneon 8y ago
The Geneva system has been cancelled because achieving the "universal" verification would have meant to rebuild the whole system from scratch.
beefhash 8y ago
> Geneva doesn't want to bear the costs anymore. Which is doubly unfortunate because their implementation was released under the AGPL[1]; now it's the only one that is any kind of free software at all. The Swiss Post, however, only gives the minimum possible license grant (that also requires you to sign up)[2] that applicable law[3] mandates. [1] https://github.com/republique-et-canton-de-geneve/chvote-1-0/blob/master/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/republique-et-canton-de-geneve/chvote-1-0... [2] https://www.post.ch/-/media/post/evoting/dokumente/nutzungsbedingungen-quellcode.pdf?la=en&vs=1 https://www.post.ch/-/media/post/evoting/dokumente/nutzungsb... sections 6 and 7: You cannot even redistribute the code! [3] https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/20132343/index.html#a7a https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/20132343/...

sgc 8y ago

Is there a historical list of the items you vote on each election? I am curious to see a real world example of such regular voting.

oneon 8y ago
The most broad collection from all cantons was just now published into a smartphone app called VoteInfo, see https://www.admin.ch/ https://www.admin.ch/ site for more details. Otherwise information is usually scattered on the various canton's (districts) websites.
- sgc 8y ago
  Thanks for the head start. Looking around on admin.ch I found https://www.bk.admin.ch/ch/f/pore/va/vab_2_2_4_1_gesamt.html https://www.bk.admin.ch/ch/f/pore/va/vab_2_2_4_1_gesamt.html with results from 1848-present.
  - transpa-regency 8y ago
    These are the federal subject votes; it does not include federal elections or cantonal/communal votes/elections. So I would guess one has about six topics on average to decide on, 4-5 times a year.
    - sgc 8y ago
      Sometimes I think we need to be realistic and accept that there are populations on the planet which have a hundred - or hundreds - of years of work to evolve past their current mindset. I can think of a number of countries where the general population does not seem to have the capacities for this type of responsibility. If every issue devolves into a a cutthroat battle rather than a serious discussion at the end of which opinions are expressed, society cannot handle regular voting since it is primed for corruption. A deep education on civic duty rather than nationalism is one obvious piece of the puzzle, but also a safety net and affluence where people are not desperate and can remain free of basic economic pressure to conform is another big one. Perhaps the biggest one that I have seen missing from my own country and others is a true desire for personal excellence, one that is even greater than the desire for success. Including philosophy in education from a younger age can help with instilling that mindset. What do you think has helped Switzerland as a society succeed as a democracy?

oneon 8y ago

The Geneva system has been cancelled because achieving the "universal" verification would have meant to rebuild the whole system from scratch.

beefhash 8y ago

> Geneva doesn't want to bear the costs anymore. Which is doubly unfortunate because their implementation was released under the AGPL[1]; now it's the only one that is any kind of free software at all. The Swiss Post, however, only gives the minimum possible license grant (that also requires you to sign up)[2] that applicable law[3] mandates. [1] https://github.com/republique-et-canton-de-geneve/chvote-1-0/blob/master/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/republique-et-canton-de-geneve/chvote-1-0... [2] https://www.post.ch/-/media/post/evoting/dokumente/nutzungsbedingungen-quellcode.pdf?la=en&vs=1 https://www.post.ch/-/media/post/evoting/dokumente/nutzungsb... sections 6 and 7: You cannot even redistribute the code! [3] https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/20132343/index.html#a7a https://www.admin.ch/opc/en/classified-compilation/20132343/...