The Swiss
parliament has two chambers, the National Council and the Council of States. In
the National Council, the cantons are represented according to population. In
the Council of States, each canton has two representatives, but there are also
a few half-cantons with one representative each. For the National Council,
there are uniform electoral rules for the country at large; for the Council of
States, it is up to each canton to determine the electoral rules as long as
they are democratic.
When modern
Switzerland
was founded in 1848, the electoral rules for the National Council were
winner-take-all in single member districts such as FPTP, see First Past the Post (FPTP). After World War I, the rules were
changed to party list proportionality, see List PR. Currently, the National Council
has 200 members that are elected in 26 electoral districts, corresponding to
the 26 Swiss cantons and half-cantons. The largest canton, Zurich, elects 35 representatives, and the
smallest cantons, only one. The parties submit candidate lists in each canton
containing the names of their candidates for that canton's seats. The results
are counted separately for each canton.
Having 26
electoral districts instead of a single national district works against the
smaller parties. If Switzerland
were treated as a single electoral district, only one-half of one percent of
the vote would be needed to win one of the 200 National Council seats. With
elections taking place in 26 separate districts, however, a higher percentage
of votes is needed to win. In Zurich,
a party must win about three percent of the vote to win one of the canton's 35
seats. In the small cantons with only one seat, the party with the most votes
wins the seat. Thus, if the number of seats per district is reduced to one, the
proportionality system becomes a system of winner-take-all (FPTP).
In contrast
to countries like Germany, Switzerland
has no minimal threshold of votes that a party must reach to receive any
representation at all. Thus the principle of proportionality is applied in its
pure form.
The candidates on the party lists are ranked by
the voters and not by the parties. The latter merely submit a list of names
without rank, usually in alphabetical order. The number of names cannot be more
than the number of seats to be filled from each respective canton. In ranking
the individual candidates the voters have three options:
- Leave
the candidate’s name, as it appears on the list,
- Put
the candidate on the list a second time, or
- Drop the candidate from the
list.
The only
condition is that the overall number of names is not greater than the number of
seats to be elected from the canton. A voter also can decide to make no changes
at all on the list. In this case, no preference is given to any of the
candidates, but the ballot counts for the number of seats attributed to the
party.
Voters may
further complicate their list by writing in candidates from other parties
(panachage). Thus, a Socialist voter may put a Free Democratic candidate on the
list, either once or twice. With this write-in possibility, computation of the
results becomes very complicated. In the above example, the Free Democratic
write-in candidate counts for the Free Democratic party and detracts from the
Socialist party strength; the voter has split their vote between the two
parties. Voters can go even further and write in candidates from as many
parties as they wish, but, again, the total number of names is not allowed to
exceed the number of seats in the canton.
The
computation of the results proceeds in the following way: for each canton, the
number of seats each party receives is determined on the basis of the total
votes for candidates of this party. Second, candidates win these seats in order
of their ranking. This ranking is based on the number of times a candidate's
name appears on all the lists, including write-ins on other parties' lists.
The freedom
of choice that the Swiss system permits the voter weakens the party's control
over its candidates, and thus party discipline is low. Although a Swiss party
still controls whether or not a candidate gets listed, it cannot determine a
candidate's chances of election through rank on the list. Once candidates are
listed, they are on their own and must try to get a maximum number of voters to
write them in twice, and a minimum to cross them out. Although this system seems
to give great power to the electorate, it also increases the influence of
interest groups. These groups inform their members about the candidates who
favour their interests and for whom two votes should be cast, as well as about
candidates who should be crossed out because they do not favour the group's
interests. A teachers' group, for example, will inform its members which
candidates are sympathetic to teachers' needs and which are not. Letters are
sent out by a large number of groups ranging from business groups to trade
unions. Candidates depend on political parties only for getting listed on the
ballot; to be elected, they must obtain the support of a large number of
different interest groups.
The Swiss
still vote for party lists, but their electoral system allows them to express
preferences for and against particular candidates. The election also takes
place in relatively small districts, where voters feel more at home than in a
single national district. These factors together personalize the relations
between voters and candidates. With this electoral system the Swiss currently
have 14 parties in the National Council.
Besides
taking part in elections, Swiss voters have also a great say through the
referendum, see Referendum. Indeed, of all the national
referenda held in Western democracies since World War II, more than two-thirds
were held in Switzerland.
Voters have the right to call for a popular referendum on every bill decided by
parliament. The only requirement is that 50,000 signatures be obtained, which
is relatively easy in a country of 7 million inhabitants. The voters also have
the final say on constitutional amendments. All constitutional amendments
decided by parliament must be submitted to the voters. A minimum of 100,000
voters can also submit a constitutional amendment of their own, which will
first be debated by parliament but finally decided in a popular referendum.
This instrument of the popular constitutional initiative is widely used and can
be applied to whatever question the people wish to decide. When the referendum
was introduced in the 19th century, it was expected that its effect would be
innovative. The founders of modern Switzerland anticipated that the
voters would be open to change, but the opposite was true and the referendum
has often had a delaying effect. The best example is the introduction of female
suffrage only in 1971. Parliament was prepared much earlier than male voters to
grant women the right to vote. This example is typical in the sense that it
shows how it often takes a long time to convince the Swiss voters to accept a
new idea.
