Postal voting

Ensuring that every vote counts

Postal voting in elections and referendums is popular with Mr and Mrs Swiss: more than 80 percent of all voters prefer to place their vote in the letter box than in the ballot box. In the run-up to national votes in particular, this is a major challenge for Swiss Post: shortly before any ballot, municipalities and cantons send out five million consignments to voters with information on voting and other materials.

To ensure that every vote counts, it is important that on the “return route”, around a million voting envelopes are processed and delivered in good time.

In the past, each canton used its own envelope to send out the documents. To unify these processes and prevent damage, Swiss Post worked with representatives of the cantons and municipalities and with envelope manufacturers to develop a uniform two-way envelope: the format, type of paper, flap on the back and strength of the perforation were chosen to ensure that the envelope meets the needs of customers and is suitable for automatic sorting. Its introduction throughout Switzerland is planned for 1 April 2016.