| My explanation for swiss voter turnout: if it ain't broke don't fix it. Two anecdotes: - the presidency rotates among members of the executive committee, on a yearly basis. Cynically, the president exists so if a foreign head of state wants to have dinner, they have someone with whom to do it. - when a referendum comes to the ballot, we don't just have to vote it up or down. The government gets a chance to say "yes, we agree this is a problem, but we'd suggest solving it this other way". Those are two options. The third (and I believe this is most popular) is "meh, it's working fine as it is". Anyway, compared to US politics[1], swiss politics is wonderfully sedate. I'd like to think that's because the politicians are here to make the country run more smoothly, so the rest of us have better things to do. Edit: and yes, we receive all balloting material by mail, and return it by mail. No problem. It works. [1] is this because there are no center parties? Q. Why is US politics like the Cupid Shuffle? A. To the right, to the right, to the right, to the right /
To the left, to the left, to the left, to the left |
So how do the electorate hold the executive to account if they say the will do x instead of y but actually do nothing or something else entirely?
Can you have a reference back on a subsequent referendum to a motion that was remitted in a previous referendum - that's technically the democratic way to do it.