What on earth? Getting charged for not voting. Has anyone seen this before?

38 comments
  1. Yep, Canton Schffhausen passed a law to increase voter participation. That’s why they always top out in that statistic.

    IMO this should be implemented nation wide. I’m a huge fan of the idea.

    Edit: spelling

  2. Could be a good idea, it worked out fairly well in Australia and now it has one of the highest electoral turnout rates in the world.

  3. Not voting is simple: Sign the voter ID, and return all to sender. Takes less then 2 minutes plus a trip to the next yellow mailbox.

  4. Einfach in einer Währung zahlen wo ,,6″ nicht so viel wert ist wie CHF. Steht ja nicht dabei das CHF gemeint sind 🙂

  5. I’d assume that everybody who is affected by this Schaffhausen law knows about it because… well… they’re from/in Schaffhausen.

    Schaffhausen is actually known nation-wide for this, so even I knew 😉

  6. Being from somewhere where we can only vote on assholes who vote on laws, and we have to do it in person, I don’t understand how you guys don’t vote every single time.

  7. Yeah I seen it, back in my home country voting is compulsory and if you fail to vote and fail to justify why you didn’t vote to the electoral judge you gotta pay a fine.

  8. This is exclusive to Schaffhausen. I’m from Zurich and I don’t always vote, and I am honestly a pretty bug fan of this system Schaffhausen has! It’s low enough to not hurt, but high enough to be annoying.

    Only thing that surprises me is that it’s 6.-! (Used to be 5.-)

  9. Somehow I agree with this……….it would give everyone a viable reason to moan about how their Country and County is being run. If no vote a fee for the admin and no reason to moan.

  10. I love that Schaffhausen kept that old cornerstone of Swiss democracy. My father likes to tell the story of how when he was a child, the local policeman went from door to door the day after each vote to collect from those who missed it. This was not in Schaffhausen, but in Aargau.

    What is weird to me, is that everyone here, in the hls, studies from the ETHZ and UNILU I found, discusses this as if it were a novel idea of Schaffhausen, when to me, this has always been a lost idea from the past.

    I really like the idea. “Only those who do not seek power are qualified to hold it.”

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