Being Swiss is hard work

And that's not a complaint. I became Swiss for many reasons, but one of the major ones was voting--and we do often. We vote many times a year on issues that are usually left to governments.

The Swiss can have votations with enough signatures to bring forth a new law or to reject something the parliament has decided. I feel I live in a country that is as democratic as possible although far from perfect.

The photo is of our latest ballot package waiting for me when I came home. There are six items, two cantonal, four national.

The ballot package is show above and includes:

• Envelope with contents
• Envelope to put in your ballot
• Identification card
• Booklets explaining (in painful detail) the issues
• Ballot

It is the "painful detail" of the booklets that I find hard slogging. I can read French without major difficulties, BUT the ins and outs of legalese and some of the arguments will never reach the point that I suspect the butler did it. Still I wade through. And I suppose I can feel smug that I no longer have to look up the English meaning of some words.

Ballot packages go out in the four official languages of the country. 

Think, a country about the size of Massachusetts has four official languages without hysterics. 

There is the rösti curtain which describes different political leanings between the French and Germans and is called the rösti curtain because rosti is a traditional Swiss German dish, although it is eaten throughout the country. 

The German Swiss tend to vote more traditionally than the French Swiss. 

We don't have a spaghetti curtain for the Italian speakers and Romanish are too few to have their own curtain. Curtain is a translation for röstigraben which could translate as home fries/dig.

I find really helpful the lists of all the parties and their opinions listed (far right corner). Notice how many parties there are. Some are one issue parties, but there are a few major ones from far left to far right with stops in between.

What are we voting on?

• Keeping bus/tram tickets the same price. We voted on this once but the wording was wrong so there's another vote. It passed the first time, but after the vote it became clear that if passed some of the benefits such as reduction for a train system reduction would no longer work and reduce the efficiency of what is an excellent system.
• Building parking lots in France. Now this isn't as generous as it sounds because they would be built near when all the Frontaliers who work in Geneva could park their cars and take public transportation the rest of the way easing traffic conditions
• With family doctors retiring they are having trouble finding young doctors to take their place. The question is whether to allow doctors to practice in a different manner. It sounds like seeds for an HMO but I'm not sure. That certainly wouldn't be in the wording. I did notice every party was for it something I hadn't seen often if ever.
• Banning pedophiles from working with children.
• A minimum wage of 2,500 CHF per month. (US$2,847, Euro2,052, £1,686 ) Most people are paid well beyond this limit, but it applies to lower wage jobs. Imagine a US McDo worker earning that annually. Think of the quality of life they could have? The spending power?)
• Can the government buy new airplanes to replace the thirty-year-old ones for the air force. (Americans wouldn't you love to be able to vote on Pentagon purchases?)

I admit falling asleep reading the pros and cons. I had been reading the local papers on line on the issues already or at least scanning as they appeared.  I finished the ballot package this morning and when I finish this blog I'll mark my ballot and mail it tomorrow.

There is another way I form my opinions. In every community each party has posters on their positions. Some are over the top like this by the UDC/SVP as an anti-immigration vote several votations ago. And sadly sometimes the votes go the wrong way like the recent anti-immigration vote which has cost Switzerland money and opportunities in the EU. Often voters do not think issues through and as a new Swiss voter I know this is time consuming.

There are three ways to vote:

• Mail
• In person where you take your ballot. I did it once and the clerk saying I was a new voter should go into the booth and make sure I had voted the way I wanted to. So I went in and stood there for a time that would make him happy and came out again.
• Internet in some communities, but not ours.

I said that being Swiss was hard work, but since the country decided I had the right to be Swiss, I need to repay the favour by being a good citizen and that includes being a responsible voter.