Swiss Review 2/2020

Swiss Review / April 2020 / No.2 16 made us less than popular among potential system pro- viders. Postal voting is popular, but that can be manipulated as well. And several thousand postal votes are rendered invalid each time, because voters failed to sign their ballot papers, for example. Your comparison is a bit too simplistic. You can manipu- late postal votes here and there, but rarely on a large scale. The concernwith e-voting is that someone could hack into the server and change the entire outcome of the vote. Cri- tics are right to say that we should remain wary when it comes to our democratic processes. We therefore have to explain to people what we are doing to make e-voting as secure as possible. Aren’t there any alternatives to e-voting that would enable Swiss Abroad to exercise their legal right to vote? What about sending voting papers electronically? E-dispatch is not a good idea in my view. It is certainly less secure than a fully verifiable e-voting system. And it would only be of use to Swiss Abroad whose post is too slow for sending voting papers both ways but quick enough for sending them one way. E-voting was not only meant as an innovation for expats, as you know. Through e-voting, we can finally ensure voter secrecy for Switzer- land’s 350,000 blind or partially sighted people. E-dispatch is no use to them. Then what about keeping things simple and voting at an embassy instead? When I used to live in Moscow, I was able to hand my vo- ting envelope to the diplomatic courier. But that is not an option if you live in Vladivostok or Irkutsk. You would have to fly to Moscow each time you wanted to cast your vote. Another thing that has been suggested is nomina- ting a proxy in Switzerland who will receive your ballot paper and fill it in according to how you want to vote. But you cannot vote in secret that way. Would the Swiss Ab- road really want that? Of course, we are always open to making improvements. For example, we extended the deadline for returning voting papers by one week. We could also start to think about alternatives if e-voting was ever ditched for good. Could a dedicated constituency for the "Fifth Switzerland" be another alternative? You would need to change the constitution for that. We have 760,000 Swiss who live abroad. Anyone can launch a popular initiative if they want to. But that won’t solve the prob- lem of voting papers not arriving in time, I am afraid. The complaints from the "Fifth Switzerland" are probably less to do with voting and more to do with the feeling that they are being treated unfairly. Essentially, the problem is that not all Swiss can actually exercise their voting rights to the full. I understand the frustration of those who feel disenfranchised. Ho- wever, postal voting was introducedwith the caveat that there is no guarantee of voting papers arriving on time. I remember because I used to be head of the Service for the Swiss Abroad at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. We cannot repeat the vote if the Bra- zilian post office fails to deliver the voting envelopes on time. Never- theless, we do have a very democratic voting system here in Swit- zerland. Our expatriate communities continue to have political rights, even though some expatriates have been based abroad for ge- nerations. Maybe that is worth mentioning too. Walter Thurnherr has been the Federal Chancellor since 2016. He is the most senior official responsible for federal elections and votes. Thurnherr, who was born in Aargau and studied physics, has served in various positions within the Federal Administration and the diplomatic service, involving assignments in Moscow and New York. “Security can never be completely watertight,” Thurnherr tells “Swiss Review”.