4 ms·

Amazing and terrible I think it is pretty fitting. As a Swiss I have voted almost every single time (about 4 times a year) since I was able to, but I have neve

by smoe 6y ago

Amazing and terrible I think it is pretty fitting. As a Swiss I have voted almost every single time (about 4 times a year) since I was able to, but I have never even left the house for doing that beyond dropping it off in the next regular or official mailbox. I don't know what a polling stations look like from the inside after 15 years of voting, and being completely honest, I probably couldn't be arsed for the majority of votes/elections to go stand in line somewhere in the rain for doing so. Potential manipulation risk for mail in voting in general aside, what I found baffling doing a quick google search on administrative cost of an election is how much more the US seems to be spending per citizen than Switzerland. Switzerland spends a little less than 2$ per voter whereas the US spends 10$, at least according to this article https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2019-01/mohr_et_al_2017summary.pdf https://electionlab.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2019-01/mohr... What would make it so much more expensive? Staff cost? Much larger geographical distribution of voters? Or just being inefficient? As a reference, in Switzerland 80-90% of votes are mail-in.

apta 6y ago
Do you have to provide ID when voting in Switzerland?
- smoe 6y ago
  You automatically get all the material sent from the municipality you are registered in (this is mandatory) around 2 months before each vote in a re-sealable envelope that contains information how to vote, a one-off voting id, the ballot and an inner envelope to place the ballot to be separated from id before counting. You can either just send back the envelope with your vote via normal postal service for free, put it into a voting drop box that some places have, or bring voting id and ballot to a polling station. I’m not completely sure if you need other form of ID when voting in person. But don’t think that would be a problem since everyone has a national id card. https://www.ch.ch/en/demokratie/votes/how-to-complete-a-ballot-paper-correctly/ https://www.ch.ch/en/demokratie/votes/how-to-complete-a-ball...
  - apta 6y ago
    That's one problem with voting in the US. It seems that the democrats do not want people to use ID (e.g. a drivers license) when voting. It seems quite obvious that it will prevent voter fraud. They keep pointing to Europe all the time, but then when their policies are contradictory, they're quiet about it.
    - Leyths 6y ago
      In countries in Europe (such as Switzerland) where all citizens are issued some form of National ID this isn't an issue. In countries such as the US, or the UK, where forms of government ID are common but not universal, passing laws requiring ID verification to vote is voter suppression. Across all groups it is the poorest that do not have a form of government ID - https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/campaigns/upgrading-our-democracy/voter-id/ https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/campaigns/upgrading-our-... In the UK there were 28 counts of election fraud at the 2017 election, a rate of 0.000063%. Whereas estimates of people without government ID range around 10% of the population (as of 2016, anyway) https://identityassurance.blog.gov.uk/2016/01/25/estimating-what-proportion-of-the-public-will-be-able-to-use-gov-uk-verify/ https://identityassurance.blog.gov.uk/2016/01/25/estimating-...

by smoe 6y ago

apta 6y ago

Do you have to provide ID when voting in Switzerland?

smoe 6y ago
You automatically get all the material sent from the municipality you are registered in (this is mandatory) around 2 months before each vote in a re-sealable envelope that contains information how to vote, a one-off voting id, the ballot and an inner envelope to place the ballot to be separated from id before counting. You can either just send back the envelope with your vote via normal postal service for free, put it into a voting drop box that some places have, or bring voting id and ballot to a polling station. I’m not completely sure if you need other form of ID when voting in person. But don’t think that would be a problem since everyone has a national id card. https://www.ch.ch/en/demokratie/votes/how-to-complete-a-ballot-paper-correctly/ https://www.ch.ch/en/demokratie/votes/how-to-complete-a-ball...
- apta 6y ago
  That's one problem with voting in the US. It seems that the democrats do not want people to use ID (e.g. a drivers license) when voting. It seems quite obvious that it will prevent voter fraud. They keep pointing to Europe all the time, but then when their policies are contradictory, they're quiet about it.
  - Leyths 6y ago
    In countries in Europe (such as Switzerland) where all citizens are issued some form of National ID this isn't an issue. In countries such as the US, or the UK, where forms of government ID are common but not universal, passing laws requiring ID verification to vote is voter suppression. Across all groups it is the poorest that do not have a form of government ID - https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/campaigns/upgrading-our-democracy/voter-id/ https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/campaigns/upgrading-our-... In the UK there were 28 counts of election fraud at the 2017 election, a rate of 0.000063%. Whereas estimates of people without government ID range around 10% of the population (as of 2016, anyway) https://identityassurance.blog.gov.uk/2016/01/25/estimating-what-proportion-of-the-public-will-be-able-to-use-gov-uk-verify/ https://identityassurance.blog.gov.uk/2016/01/25/estimating-...