Well same thing really, be it Blick or gfs or isopublic, they still ask the people by phone and from experience the surveys often underestimate SVP before elections.

Speaking of election polls, there was one published in Blick though which to me was quite surprising as it showed quite different results compared to the previous polls:


Quite a big decline for SVP and CVP - but much better reults for FDP and glp than most of the previous polls. However, I'm not quite sure how much I trust it, Blick seems stingier than Swiss Television, their sample size is only 1000.

Was it a poll of Blick readers or (more likely) a poll published by Blick with a representative sample?

Don't they didn't just ask one of the dudes in pink "Blick am Abend" shirts to ask a few people about their political preferences when handing out his free papers and then give a guesstimate back to them - not even Blick is that bad. It was a proper poll, done by Demoscope (which is a respected, independant polling agency). Still I'm a tad sceptical about the numbers, especially when comparing it to the recent SF-Poll.

Well that's what I excepted. The 'if Blick's readers won't back him' comment doesn't really apply then.

Umm the Blick poll was about "will you vote for Blocher"
The SF poll was about "will you vote for SVP"
Different topics?

In the Blick poll another SVP guy scored higher than Blocher

So the 'if Blick's readers won't back him' comment does apply

Election fever entirely noticeable by its absence mid-September.

The CVP have made a pig's ear of not agreeing about very much at all other than the fact that they agree that their policies are not shared by all their members and that their nuclear power stance is clearly for, no against, er for, er whatever.... clear enough?

CVP head honcho Darbellay doesn't even know how to slur other parties (surely a prerequisite to be a politician methinks):

http://www.20min.ch/news/schweiz/story/20474421

The FDP (Liberals) are still being grey mice and are advocating "Less bureaucracy" and "Strengthening small businesses":

http://www.fdp.ch/aus-liebe-zur-schweiz.html

Quite what this means is not specified. How about something concrete that we can take to the house Mr. Pelli? With only just over 2'000 "likes" on Facebook, here is a party that has missed out on the internet and social media to drum up support. On the EU membership subject, they're now a "no", but "yes" to bilateral agreements. So a change to last time then.....

The Green Liberals in the meantime, aren't enthralled about the concept of the CHF 5 billion defense spend and are highlighting this on their site:

http://www.grunliberale.ch/index.htm

The Protestant EVP are putting the family aspect of life in the foreground, because they don't really have much else to say and as they're not about to get a Bundesrat seat, it doesn't really matter that much what they think anyway:

http://www.evppev.ch/de/wahlen-2011/wahlthemen.html

The Greens themselves are still trying to play the Japanese nuclear power station card, but this all seems a little lame now.

http://www.gruene.ch/web/gruene/de/positionen.html

Our chums on the left, the ubiquitous SP are campaigning on behalf of everyone in Switzerland (as opposed to the fat cats that they say are steering this country):

http://www.sp-ps.ch/ger/Wahlen

Quite remarkable is their Cleantech-Initiative which proclaims that they will create 100'000 new jobs in the renewable energy domain. I'm not sure if this requires setting up large hamster wheels with the rich being whipped into shape by the proletariat whilst simultaneously creating power, but it's one of those claims that is always good to look back at in years' time realizing that nothing really happened.

And then there's the BDP, basically disgruntled Graubünden & Bern ex. SVP members leading the more liberal line of the SVP into a gap created by the FDP's political failings and the SVP's harder leanings.

http://www.bdp.info/aktuelle_themen

The 2011 General Election is the BDP's baptism of fire, they could eclipse previous SVP and FDP voters, but at the same time weaken the more conservative balance by distributing votes across all the right of center parties, ultimately strengthening the center and socialist parties.

And of course, #1 on your voting papers, the SVP. Enough said, you either hate them or tolerate them, but there's no doubt about what their policies are: No to the EU, no to uncontrolled immigration and the creation of enough posters to upset about 67.4% of foreigners posting on EF....!

http://www.svp.ch/

Remember, if you can vote, but choose not to, just shut up when a politician does something that you don't agree with. You just pissed away your chance to have your say.

Whatever, I just, based on today's www.smartvote.ch results and on personal likings and dislikes finalized my list for the NR, and in case of the SR it will be Gutzwiller/Hardegger. Yes, it will be interesting to see who from ZH moves into the SR in the end.

You know.... technology really does offer us so much today, and we do tend to be spoiled silly by its advancement and its possibilities.

Nevertheless the original concept of voting, in my mind, is to be able to express one's opinion, in the anonymous privacy of a voting booth as to retain complete freedom of thought.

Somewhere I have true difficulty matching a smart vote polling website, to this idea.

I don't mind saying myself that I tend to vote center-slightly left and green, but I feel awkward with a website telling me so.
Just my 2 romande centimes.

Vote as your stomach tells you

Does not matter because the politicians will anyway not do what they promised (no doubt for good reasons )

I tried the smart vote site which came up with "young liberals"

I also thought of voting BDP as an anti SVP tactic

Did the Smartvote site which came up with a nice coalition I widely used.
22 SP, 6 Piratenpartei, 2 Liberals, 2 Green-Liberals, 2 Alternative List

I've never figured out the strategy behind having separate lists for the "Young" groups (e.g. Jeunes UDC, Jeunes Vert). Seems like a good way to split one's own party. Even wierder are the separate "international" lists.

BTW how does the Standerat election work. Can I vote for anybody who is on one of the 34 lists I received or are there only a limited number of people standing for the Standerat?

The only Standerat candidate I heard of Blocher but I do not plan to vote for him.

In fact due to the rather complex votin system in this country exactly the opposite I true. The parties can pit forward "list-connections" (listenverbindungen) which will be mentioned in the beginning of your election booklet. You will find that all aspects (young, old, international, main) of a party will be lumped into one. On polling day, these will FIRST be treated as one to see how many seats the "connection" has made. Afterwards it will be worked out which aspect of the connection made how many votes and hence seats. Normally all seats go to the mother party but sometimes one. two might go to a "young" party. Basically it's a tactic to cover a wider spectrum of voters and increase your chances on the last (in Zurich 34th) seat which goes to te party with the biggest "leftover". These connections are also allowed between parties, not just within. So you will see that there is a "left" block in most cantons where the greens and SP have connected their lists. Or SVP and EDU (in the past FDP but they seem to have drifted too far). It's important to remember that there is still a difference from voting green or SP as these connections are more a statistical quirk in irder to increase the whole blocks chance on the last seat. Which party ends up getting it is often a bit hit and miss.

It's basically a straight forward popular vote with no lists or anything. You can put any citizen of your canton down - incluin yourself or me (PM for details if you want to do the latter). Most of the big parties will nominate ONE candidate only. Smartvote.ch or the party webpages will tell you who they are and why they stand for. If one candidate gets 50% of the votes he's in, otherwise we'll have a 2nd round (which is likely). Unlike the nationalrat it make sence to vote for one of the big parties with a realistic candidate - i.e. if you put down EVP or EDU or any of the small ones, your vote will likely be wasted as they have no hope of getting a majority. For the same reason, most seats wolill usually go to center parties as the candidates need support from beyond their own partylines - which the left and right extremes (anything from SP to the left and from SVP to the right) usually struggle to achieve.

You can put TWO persons into the two fields for the Ständerat (Senate), for example Dr Felix Gutzwiller (FDP) and Mr Hardegger (SP) . Or Mrs Verena Diener of the GLP. At present, Dr Gutzwiller and Mrs Diener are representing Zürich in the SR. You can insert as many people into the NR list as there are indicated.

I did insert Messrs Gutzwiller and Hardegger as SR, as Gutzwiller has done good work in parliament for many years, and Hardegger has a good reputation in Rümlang, and I could do well without Mrs Diener

Thanks for this. I know about lists and proportional representation, but I didn't know about the alliances aspect in the voting. Following up on this, I did a little googling and I had to figure out new concepts like "apparentment" and the Hagenbach-Bischoff system. Confused? You will be...

Yeah no kidding... Not surprising half the country doesn't bother because it seems to complicated. Just picked my 34 favourites from the 802 candidates on 30 lists - crikey it took me forever to google every single one of them!

...couln't resist inculding at least one Pirate ;-) Just in case the Dutch fleet decides to sail up the Rhine...

Now I just realised I have no clue how to vote; I mean what you actually write on the voting document if, for example, I want to select a whole list.

I asked a neighbour who said they learnt that in school but she no longer remembers how. Is there a web site somewhere with examples of completed documents?

These should help:
http://www.ch.ch/abstimmungen_und_wa...x.html?lang=en (this one is in English)
http://www.statistik.zh.ch/internet/...hlen_2011.html (this one is in German, but if you can vote, I assume...)