Fairness in the voting booklet

Background

The text of the official ballot paper makes use of propaganda and mentions "hardship cases" and "childcare" above all, thus concealing the most important points of the new Covid law. The dangerous tightening such as the "comprehensive digital contact tracing", which in future will monitor every Swiss at every turn, the "legitimisation of the Covid certificate", which establishes the two-class society and the discrimination of the unvaccinated, and "the Federal Council's sole determination of Covid policy", which strongly violates the separation of powers, are not mentioned.

Demands of the petition

1. We demand a neutral voting question!
   The voting question on the Covid law is manipulative. The arguments of the supporters are directly integrated into the voting question. State-political and socially weighty arguments of the opponents are completely omitted. Such a procedure distorts the voting behaviour of the electorate and is unworthy of a direct democracy.
2. We demand equal space for pros and cons and an objective information section.
   The Federal Council and Parliament are given much more space in the voting booklet to present their own arguments than the referendum or initiative committee. In the section "In brief", the initial situation and the proposal are described in a feigned objectivity. De facto, this passage comes very close to a "yes" argument. Combined with the manipulative voting question, the pro-side has about 75% of the double-page spread available in this section to promote a Yes vote.
3. We demand that the voting recommendations on the back of the voting booklet be omitted
   The voting recommendation of the Federal Council and Parliament on the back of the voting booklet should be omitted in future. Federal Council recommendations have a strong influence on opinion-forming due to their high profile and magistrates, and they influence the opinion-forming of the electorate too much. If a referendum or initiative is taken, there is clearly a need for the population to get involved in the political process and/or there is dissatisfaction with the parliamentary bill.

All justifications for these demands can be found on the Petition website set out.

Submission of the petition

The petition was handed over to the Federal Chancellery, Bundeshaus West, at 2 p.m. on 24 January 2022.