Swiss Post delivers for democracy
Election and voting consignments are vital to direct democracy. Swiss Post transports 20 million of these consignments to voters each year. A remarkable logistical feat: all consignments must be accepted, sorted and delivered throughout Switzerland within a very short space of time.
The electorate decides political issues in Switzerland by casting their ballots. And Swiss Post ensures the envelopes containing the documents arrive safely. It provides the “Election and voting consignment” service – which is specially designed for official election and referendum documents – for municipalities and cantons. The service minimizes the risk of the special two-way envelopes being damaged.
Two weeks of non-stop sorting
Transporting the election and voting consignments on top of all the other letters and parcels is an incredible logistical feat – at the last federal elections, over five million voting envelopes had to be processed within a week. To achieve this, the sorting machines at Swiss Post run day and night for almost two weeks. The mail carriers also did a remarkable job. They delivered the voting documents – which weigh up to half a kilo for parliamentary elections – to recipients. All told, around 2,000 tonnes of voting materials were delivered on time, which equates to 400 truckloads of envelopes. But for Swiss Post, the work does not end with the delivery. Over half of votes are cast by post – which means that around a million envelopes are transported to ballot boxes by Swiss Post on polling day.