From waste paper to zebra list: the great election alphabet

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The candidates’ advertising leaflets are piled higher than the parties’ election promises. In this way, the politicians keep the printing presses running, but also the waste paper collection. Can anyone tell them that we live in a digital age?

Schaffhausen is the only canton that punishes people who don’t vote. Six francs is due for each missed vote. This is probably why more voters go to the polls than in the rest of Switzerland. In the 2019 elections it was 60 percent. The national average was only 45.1 percent.

Voting takes courage. No matter how you place your fingers and thumb on the envelope, the resealable flap will never remain intact when you tear it open. Then it’s time to swear, fill out the ballot and do some crafting: carefully stick the adhesive strip and the remaining pussy together. When the envelope is closed, the joy is great. Until you turn the envelope over and notice that your own address is listed in the address window. Then swear again.

More and more cantons are using this procedure to ensure that the distribution of seats after the elections is as fair as possible. It was invented by the mathematician Friedrich Pukelsheim and it is incredibly complicated. Very briefly: It ensures that the smaller parties also get a piece of the birthday cake.

Substitute candidates in elections are just like substitutes in football. They remain on the bench until an elected official runs out of breath or has “Kä Luscht” left. The difference with football: in politics, the person who gets the second most votes plays a role, and not necessarily the second best.

Some politicians dig deep into their pockets to get a seat in parliament. How deep they have to reveal for the first time this year. At least if you spend more than 50,000 francs. Thanks to the new transparency law, we know that some people are spending more than a quarter of a million francs on the election campaign.

Politicians everywhere are handing out election gifts, so-called giveaways: chocolate, snacks (because of the terribly sad politics?) and even wooden cutting boards. The symbolism is not always clear. Especially because politicians prefer nails rather than wooden planks.

If you can’t wait for the final result in the evening, you can do the projections in the afternoon. They rely on statistics and voter behavior to make early guesses about who will win. It’s like reading coffee grounds, but with numbers.

Promote yourself as unfiltered as possible. Every politician wants that in the eight weeks before the elections. After the vote, the desire for it suddenly disappeared. At least for those who lost.

They’re a rare breed: in 2019, only a third of 18- to 24-year-olds voted. This was approximately two-thirds among seniors between 65 and 75 years old. The latter is exemplary, the former is a shame. Ultimately, political decisions affect young people the longest.

Have you still not voted? Then hurry! Take the electoral list of the party you trust. You can edit the list and delete a name. If you write down the name of a candidate who is already on the list, this is called cumulation. He then gets two votes. Please note: A name cannot appear more than twice on the list.

Parties can combine their lists and thus increase the chance of seats. So far so good. What parties are increasingly using are sublist connections. While in the past there was at most a women’s and a boys’ list in addition to the normal list, today the parties surpass each other with x sub-lists – SME list, list of the best elderly, list of the future and list of Francophiles… the The possibilities for rousing voters’ nerves are apparently limitless.

Most seats in the National Council are distributed proportionally, that is, in accordance with the vote share a party has obtained. The majority elections, which are held in some cantons for the National Council and almost always for the Council of States, are different: here the candidates are directly elected – that is why they are also called personal elections.

Non-voters are like people standing in front of a huge buffet but refusing to eat. In political terms, these are people who have the right to vote, but do not do so for various reasons. But please don’t complain that the wrong people are ‘in Bern’.

The marathon of politics, the difficult process by which politicians work their way step by step to a higher political office. It is the highest discipline of political endurance training. Anyone who has successfully completed this is truly steely.

→ Accumulate we already learned it above. There is also variety. That’s easier, think of the Panaché: On an electoral list you can cross out the names of candidates you don’t like and replace them with people from other parties. Then they also get a vote. But again: a name cannot appear more than twice on the list. Otherwise the ballot paper is invalid.

Speaking of Panaché: the bill will come one way or another – in the bar or in politics. Citizens express their dissatisfaction through a bad result or even by being voted out. It’s like the rating system in a restaurant, only there are no stars at stake, but political careers.

In proportional elections, voters vote for a party in advance and only then for specific people. The seats to be distributed are allocated proportionally to the election results of the parties. However, it may happen that seats remain unoccupied during the distribution because neither party has the required number of votes left. Then the great hour arrives → Make a list of connections. They decide who gets the other mandates.

They are at an acute risk of burnout this year: the vote counters who have to work on Sundays (and in the cities even on Saturdays). The number of lists and candidacies will peak in 2023. 5909 people on 618 lists want to go to parliament. Counting all these lists is a grueling job. Besides, vote counters like the voters who are neither → Accumulate still → Variationbut rather throw in a pre-printed list unchanged.

Resourceful politicians, especially from the left, have discovered a new tactic: the dating app Tinder. With slogans such as ‘Swipe right for a better future’ they try to win not only hearts but also voters. You can certainly read this as a contribution to political education. Perhaps in the near future, singles will discuss current education policies over candlelight dinners instead of hobbies?

Sodom and Gomorrah! In the best democracy in the world and the otherwise very strict Switzerland, where you even risk a fine if you park your tire outside the parking lot, ballot boxes are not regulated at all! Although the cantons can give municipalities instructions on what the urn should look like, they are reluctant to do so. The canton of Bern stipulates that the urns must be sealed and have “clear inscriptions”. However, the communities are free in size, shape and color.

How are you going to convince all these people to vote for you? Of course with your own video! Politicians of all stripes have been coming to this conclusion for years. Then the party chairman dances and the candidate stumbles, making your face flush with embarrassment. Dear politicians, no, not everyone necessarily has to make their own video or podcast. It hardly decides whether to vote or not.

An election barometer uses surveys to measure the political mood in the country, capturing current preferences and trends among voters. These kinds of political weather reports are both desired and feared by party headquarters, depending on whether it’s all sunshine or storm clouds gathering before them.

Among social media, X (formerly Twitter) is still the top dog among politicians. There they juggle tweets, always running the risk of falling into the shitstorm trap. It’s more comfortable on Instagram – and there aren’t as many hate comments. If X boss Elon Musk continues like this, the 2027 election campaign will take place entirely on Insta. Or maybe on → Tinder?

Most of our parliamentarians have a Y chromosome and are therefore men. Especially in the Council of States, the share of women is low at 28 percent, while in the National Council this is 42 percent. The impartial organization “Helvetia is calling!” has set itself the goal of increasing the proportion of women. Let’s see if Helvetia is listening too.

There may be one or two exotic candidates among the candidates, but there are still only bipeds available for election. The term zebra list refers to the stripes. Just as black and white alternate on a zebra, women and men – or old and new – alternate on zebra frames. In this way, the parties try to distribute the list places as fairly as possible.

Source:Blick