Voting

My housemate and I sat at the kitchen table in the heart of the heart of Switzerland, the mountains outside our window. She was drinking coffee with frothed milk. I had tête de moine tea with its hint of clove. A fresh baked loaf of bread was in the centre of the table and all around us were the elements from our election packages:

The booklet with the explanations, the voting card, and much information were spread out among the advertisements from different candidates as well as the newspaper with the graph showing where the 15 political parties stood left, right, liberal conservative.

Although we are on different parts of the spectrum we cross over on some issues and are much more in agreement. We weren’t trying to convince the other of our point of view, just bouncing ideas off one another to make sure we each understood why we were voting as we were.

The night before we had done the short and long survey on http://www.smartvote.ch/ where we answered questions on our view points and then the computer was able to generate a list of the candidates that most matched our opinions along with biographical information. However, we have to factor our knowledge in of the people themselves.

I should add this is an election year where we elect the equivalent of the Congress which is set up like the American Congress. However from there seven leaders become the equivalent on the cabinet in ratio to the parties and one of those becomes president for a year.
Unlike the American election, money is not a factor. Also the election period is short—a few weeks.

As new citizens we take the right to vote as an almost sacred obligation in this tiny democracy. Our communes, cantons and nation put their faith in us to be responsible citizens, so the weight of voting weighed even more heavily on us.The ballots are due at the voting place via mail by next Sunday. We can always vote in person, but we will make our decisions within the next 24 hours. In some cases we may cancel each other out. In others we will reinforce the other. In all cases we are trying to act in best interest of the country, and in a couple of cases, voted the country’s interest over our own.