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Ge.ch > Thèmes > Citoyenneté > Votations - Elections > Votations > E-Voting > Press release by the Geneva State Chancellery

Press release by the Geneva State Chancellery

The seventh Internet-based ballot has been a success
E-voting is now part of the Geneva political landscape
(November the 28th 2004)

Internet voting has been adopted by the Geneva citizens : in the eight municipalities where it was offered for the federal ballot of November the 28th, 22.4% of the voters who exercised their voting rights used it to cast their ballot. In these municipalities, postal voting attracted 71.4% of voters and polling station voting drew another 6.2% of voters. This was the second e-enabled federal ballot in Switzerland (the first one was organised in Geneva in September) and the 7th e-enabled ballot in Geneva and in Switzerland.

3755 Geneva citizens chose to vote online for the three federal referendums and the two cantonal ones that were on ballot on Sunday. Remote voting – postal and electronic – opened on November the 5th already. Reading the electronic ballots took 15 minutes and 8 seconds. The e-ballot box opening has been attended by representatives of the Norwegian Ministry of the Interior and of the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister of Great-Britain (ODPM). No technical problem and no attack attempt were recorded during the three weeks leading to the ballot closure.

«After having conducted seven online ballots in Geneva, not only has our application reached an excellent degree of maturity, but it has also been adopted by the people», said Mr Robert Hensler, Geneva State Chancellor and head of the electronic voting project.

Eight out of the 45 Geneva municipalities were offered online voting : Anières (1220 registered voters), Vandoeuvres (1385), Cologny (2560), Collonge-Bellerive (3770), Versoix (5200), Onex (8920), Carouge (9180) and Meyrin (9200), for a total of more than 41,400 persons, out of a grand total of 210,000 registered voters in Geneva. Total turnout in these municipalities exceeded by 2.8 points the canton average of 41.1%.

The results of the eBallot in terms of voters’ choices converge with those of postal voting. On two questions, polling stations voters have voted differently. The convergence of preferences between the two remote voting channels is almost perfect over all the 18 questions that were asked during the seven e-enabled ballots to-date: only one question didn’t yield the same outcome. Polling stations outcome diverged in three occasions. Internet voting reinforces democracy by consolidating ballots results and by broadening the voters’ base.

E-voting is not simply a replication of postal voting, its users have a different voting pattern in time. More than half of the electronic ballots (55.8%) have been cast during the third and last ballot week and more than a quarter (27.5%) during the last 36 hours. E-voting appears to be used by voters as a chance to follow the whole electoral campaign, while voting quietly home at the last minute.

The e-voting pilots conducted in Geneva, Neuchâtel and Zurich are coordinated by the Swiss federal Chancellery, which also supports them financially. They pave the way for a possible adoption of Internet voting in Switzerland.