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Reports

Report on the 7th official online ballot in Geneva,
second e-enabled federal ballot
(November the 28th 2004)

From November the 5th 2004, when the electronic ballot was has been connected to the Net, to Saturday November the 27th, the citizens of eight out of the 45 Geneva municipalities were given the possibility to cast their ballot online on the occasion of a federal (three questions) and cantonal (two questions) referendum. All Geneva citizens could vote by post during the same time frame or vote in the polling stations on Sunday, November the 28th.

The municipalities were Internet voting was offered were those of Anières (1220 registered voters, 3rd electronic ballot), Vandoeuvres (1385, 2nd electronic ballot), Cologny (2560, 3rd electronic ballot), Collonge-Bellerive (3770, 1st electronic ballot), Versoix (5200, 1st electronic ballot), Onex (8920, 1st electronic ballot), Carouge (9180, 3rd electronic ballot) and Meyrin (9200, rd electronic ballot). Overall more than 41'400 voters could vote online, or roughly one Geneva voter out of five.

The total turnout in the eight «e-enabled» municipalities exceeded by 2,8 points the canton average: 43,9% vs. an average of 41,1%. This positive margin was already present in the September ballot, when four municipalities were able to vote online for a federal referendum. (58,35% turnout in the four e-municipalities, vs. an average of 57,1%). It is too early to draw conclusions, because we lack a series of data that would allow for statistical analysis. Yet, we have a first indication of a possible impact of e-voting on turnout.

E-turnout (in proportion on the cast ballots) reached 22,4%, that is more than for the September the 26th referendum, the first e-enabled federal ballot (21,8%).

Two municipalities Anières and Cologny, cast proportionally more online votes in November than in September : 29% in Anières vs. 26,4% in September, and 24,5% in Cologny, vs. 21,9% in September.

The municipalities that could for the first time vote online achieved a high e-turnout: Collonge-Bellerive 23,4%, Onex 21,6% and Versoix 25,6%.

Postal voting attracted 71,4% of cast ballots, while 6,2% were cast in the polling station.

This confirms that, should Internet voting be generalised today, it would represent 20% to 30% of all cast ballots in the canton.

The two remote voting channels, Internet and postal voting, yielded the same result for the five questions the voters had to decide upon. On the 18 questions asked so far in the 7 e-enabled ballots in Geneva, the convergence of voters’ choices according to the voting channel is almost perfect. The few discrepancies are normal, they do not differ from the divergences one can note between the results of polling stations in a same municipality.

Although the results of the voters’ choice converged on the remote voting channels, it would be too limited to see Internet voting as a mere duplicate of postal voting. These two channels differ notably on vote distribution in time.

To be true, the November ballot is peculiar, with its fall in turnout during the second voting week, which can be explained by the complexity and the abstract nature of the federal issues (intercantonal financial equalisation and stem cell research). Voters who already had made their minds voted quickly, on the first week. The majority of citizens, however, needed time to listen to both sides’ arguments, which explains the low number of received votes in the second week.

As in September, more than 50% of online votes have been received during the third week, exactly 55,8% (52% in September). Yet, if one considers only the last 36 hours of the e-ballot (Friday and the morning of Saturday), this figure is still more impressive, as more than a quarter of all online votes (1033 votes, or 27,5% of all e-votes) were received during this day and a half.

Online voting appears to be for the citizens a chance to follow the whole political campaign to forge their opinion and then vote conveniently home once their mind is set, be it at the last minute.

Some technical data on this poll:

E-ballot papers reading took 15 minutes and 8 seconds.

The information booths we had set in two major shopping centres in Geneva could perform several hundred online voting demos and allowed us to measure the strong interest for Internet voting.

The helpline received 453 calls, their average duration was 3 minutes 38 seconds.

Six people tried to vote twice, once by Internet and once by post. They will receive a warning letter indicating that their attempt has been detected and that they risk penal sanctions.