Voting in Switzerland (called votation) is the process by which Swiss citizens make decisions about governance and elect officials. The history of voting rights in Switzerland mirrors the complexity of the nation itself. The polling stations are opened on Saturdays and Sunday mornings but most people vote by post in advance. At noon on Sunday (Abstimmungssonntag in German, Dimanche de votation in French), voting ends and the results are usually known during the afternoon.

Switzerland's voting system is unique among modern democratic nations in that Switzerland practises direct democracy in parallel with representative democracy, which is why the Swiss system is known as a semi-direct democracy. Direct democracy allows any citizen to challenge any law approved by the parliament or, at any time, propose a modification of the federal Constitution. In addition, in most cantons all votes are cast using paper ballots that are manually counted. At the federal level, voting can be organised for: Elections (election of the Federal Assembly) Mandatory referendums (votation on a modification of the constitution made by the Federal Assembly) Optional referendums (referendum on a law accepted by the Federal Assembly and, that collected 50,000 signatures of opponents) Federal popular initiatives (votation on a modification of the constitution made by citizens and that collected 100,000 signatures of supporters)

Approximately four times a year, voting occurs over various issues; these include both initiatives and referendums, where policies are directly voted on by people, and elections, where the populace votes for officials. Federal, cantonal and municipal issues are polled simultaneously, and a majority of votes are cast by mail. Between January 1995 and June 2005, Swiss citizens voted 31 times, to answer 103 federal questions, besides many more cantonal and municipal questions (during the same period, French citizens participated in only two referendums).Vincent Golay and Mix et Remix, Swiss political institutions, Éditions loisirs et pédagogie, 2008. .

The most frequent themes are social issues (e.g. welfare, healthcare, and drug policy), public infrastructure (e.g. public transport and construction projects) and environmental issues (e.g. environment and nature protection), economics, public finances (including taxes), immigration, asylum, and education, but also about culture and media, state system, foreign affairs, and military issues – again on any of the three political levels.

Voter turnout in parliamentary elections saw a continuous decline since the 1970s, down to an all-time low of 42.2% in 1995. In recent years however, voter participation has been slowly growing again and as of March 2024, the average voter participation in National Council Elections for the last five years was 46.7%.

As of March 2024, the average vote participation in popular votes for the last five years was 49.7%. Federal popular initiatives of little public appeal sometimes cause participation of less than 30% of the electorate, but controversial issues such as a proposed abolition of the Swiss army or a possible accession of Switzerland into the European Union have seen turnouts over 60%.

It is often thought that the lower voter turnout is due to “selective participation” and should not be seen as disinterest in governance matters by Swiss citizens.  Selective participation means that Swiss citizens are more likely to participate and vote on issues that are of importance to them. In 2016, approximately 90% of Swiss citizens participated in a vote at least once within a four-year period.

Voting procedures

Depending on the Canton voting can be done through showing of hands, postal voting, at polling booths, or electronically through the internet.

Until 1971 some cantons punished citizens for not voting (with a fine equivalent to $3). In the canton of Schaffhausen, voting is still compulsory. This is one reason for the turnout there usually being a little higher than in the rest of the country.

There are no voting machines in Switzerland; all votes are counted by hand. How the votes are counted varies between municipalities. Municipalities can randomly recruit a number of citizens who have the duty of counting the ballots, but penalties for disobeying this duty are very rare. Additionally, not all municipalities know such an obligations, such as the canton of Fribourg which recruits students to count the votes. However, after people sort the ballots (e.g. "yes" and "no"), then the total number of "yes" and "no" votes are counted either manually or, in bigger cities, by an automatic counter (similar to ones used in banks to count banknotes); or the ballots are weighed by a precision balance. Vote counting is usually accomplished within five or six hours, but in large cities, such as Zurich or Geneva, counting the votes in parliamentary elections may take much longer.

Postal voting

Voters are not required to register before elections in Switzerland. Since every person living in the country (both Swiss nationals and foreigners) must register with the municipality within two weeks of moving to a new place, the municipalities know the addresses of their citizens. Approximately two months before the polling date they send voters a letter containing an envelope (with the word "Ballots" on it), the ballot itself and a small booklet informing them about the proposed changes in the law. The booklet on the referendums also includes texts by both the federal council and the proponents of each referendum, allowing them to promote their position.

Once the voter has filled out their ballot these are put into an anonymous return envelope provided in the package. This first anonymous envelope and a signed transmission card that identify the voter is then put into the return envelope then sent back to the municipality. The return envelope is in fact the shipping envelope with a special opening strip that allow it to be reused to send back the vote. Many voters, especially in villages and small cities, put the return envelope directly into the municipality mailbox. Others return it by post, although not having to pay the postage in some cantons.

Once received at the municipality, the transmission card is checked to verify the right of the voter, then the anonymous return envelope is put into the ballot box with all the other votes.

Polling places

Voters also have an option to cast their vote directly at polling places. At polling places voters take the ballots that they have previously received in the mail and drop them off at the booth. However, after the introduction of postal voting most Swiss citizens do not utilise this service. Nowadays in-person voting mostly provides a safety net for people who forgot to cast their votes by mail. Polling stations have traditionally been frequented by organisations collecting signatures for federal popular initiatives.

Electronic voting

In 2003, in the Swiss canton of Geneva, some residents in the commune of Anières voted over the internet in a trial, marking the first time e-voting (electronic voting) was used in Switzerland for a binding referendum.

The government has allowed cantons to gradually expand the use of e-voting over the years.

In 2015, the Federal Council allowed the following cantons to offer electronic voting (called e-voting there) to Swiss persons living abroad who are registered in these cantons: Geneva, Lucerne, Basel-Stadt and Neuchâtel. This means about 34,000 registered Swiss abroad could vote electronically.

For voters living in Switzerland, the Federal Council offered the opportunity to vote over the Internet only to voters in the cantons of Geneva and Neuchâtel. About 90,000 persons living in Switzerland were able to vote online.

As of 2019, two e-voting systems are in use in Switzerland. CHVote, from Geneva, is in use in cantons Vaud, Bern, Lucerne, Basel City, St Gallen and Aargau. The system is open-source software licensed under the AGPL. But in 2018, Geneva decided to start to phase it out for cost reasons.

The other system is sVote from Swiss Post, proprietary but disclosed software developed by Scytl. As of 2018 It was used in Fribourg, Neuchâtel and Thurgau.

In 2019, politicians and computer experts launched a people's initiative to ban the use of e-voting for security reasons.

Elections

There are three main election types. The first two: parliamentary elections and executive elections, allow Swiss citizens to vote for candidates to represent them in the government. Parliamentary elections are organized around a proportional multi-party voting system, and executive elections are organized around a popular vote directly for individuals, where the individual with the most votes wins. The third type of election, referendums, concern policy issues.

National Council Rules for the National Council are made federally. If a canton has two or more seats in the National Council, a so-called proportional representation takes place. The ballot has as many lists as candidates are running. While citizens can propose a list, most are presented by parties. Any citizen can run for election.

Voters can either use a ready-made party ballot or a clear ballot. On both they can write in every candidate up to two times, and they can write in candidates of other lists. If they choose to leave some lines empty, they can give all the empty lines to one party, which constitutes a so-called party vote. For example, a voter can use the Social Democratic ballot with the candidates A, B, and C, but choose to strike B and C, and write in D from the Greens. A will get a candidate vote as well as D, and the Social Democrats will gain 2 votes overall and the Green 1.

Party votes and votes given to a single candidate (so-called candidate votes) are added and compose the number of votes for the list. If a list wins one or more seats, the candidates with the highest number of candidate votes wins.

Lists can join each other in an apparentment and sub-apparentments. For example, if the Social Democratic Party chooses to run with two lists, they can form a sub-apparentment. This sub-apparentment can then join an apparentment with the Green Party. In the voting outcome, they are first treated as one list: seats are given to the apparentment depending on how many votes it received as a whole. As the voting outcome is calculated based on the Hagenbach-Bischoff system, the last seat in every canton goes to the list or apparentment with the highest number of not regarded votes for the ordinarily given seats.

For example, in the 2007 National Council elections in the Canton of Jura, the parties received the following percentage of votes (sub-apparentments are already calculated): Social Democratic Party of Switzerland: 36.9% Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland: 25.0% Swiss People's Party: 13.7% FDP.The Liberals: 13.4%

Two seats were to be elected. One seat went to the Social Democrats. The Liberals and the People's Party had made an apparentment. Together, they gained 27.1% which was 2.1 percentage points more than the Christian Democratic Party. The second seat went to the People's Party (Dominique Baettig) although that party received fewer votes than the Christian Democratic Party.

Cantons with only one representative such as Nidwalden elect them via first-past-the-post voting amended by apparentment.

Council of States Members of the Council of States are elected through different systems as decided by the cantons, because the body represents Switzerland's cantons (member states). However, there is a uniform mode of election taking place on the same date as the nationwide National Council elections. This procedure is the plurality voting system ("" in German). In the canton of Zug and the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden, the elections take place before the other cantons according to .