You automatically get all the material sent from the municipality you are registered in (this is mandatory) around 2 months before each vote in a re-sealable envelope that contains information how to vote, a one-off voting id, the ballot and an inner envelope to place the ballot to be separated from id before counting.
You can either just send back the envelope with your vote via normal postal service for free, put it into a voting drop box that some places have, or bring voting id and ballot to a polling station.
I’m not completely sure if you need other form of ID when voting in person. But don’t think that would be a problem since everyone has a national id card.
If you want simplified, convenient voting there's the good old mail service for that. Nailed a decade ago or more in Switzerland. Details may differ by canton, but essentially here is how it works:
About one month before elections, or a referendum (ca. 3 times a year) you get a resealable envelope containing all voting materials.
You cast your votes and put the slips into a sealed envelope (which ensures confidentiality). Then you sign the voter eligibilty card (which also serves as the return address), stick it into the envelope in which you received the materials and drop it into the next letter box.
The materials are checked and the sealed envelopes are stored until voting day, when the votes are counted.
Inconvenience, even if you live out in the total sticks, is really no excuse for not voting in Switzerland.
Can the system be gamed? On a very small scale probably yes if you really, really want to and are really careful. Gaming it on a significant scale? i really don't see how.
As a German, when I get the vote notification via mail I just fill out a form online, receive the ballot via mail after about two days along with a form to sign, a bunch of color coded envelopes and instructions on how to assemble this voting Matrjoschka, and then just drop it all into any regular old mail box free of charge (well, kinda, taxpayer money and all).
Or I just go to the place designated in the first letter on that Sunday between 8 AM and 6 PM and vote in person.
I guess mail has the disadvantage that anyone could get a hold of your mail and fill it out in your place. Having at least a few options is good.
In Germany you get a letter with an invitation to vote automatically for every election. This is based on the general resident registry, and you're required to register when you move.
To vote you simply have to bring that letter with you, and then you usually don't need to show any ID. The election officers can still ask you for it if there is any doubt about your identity. Just before you enter your ballot your name is checked against the voter registry and crossed out from it.
Of course that still leaves a bit of fraud potential, but not really on any scale that would affect the election. You'd still need to forge the letter and know the personal details of a voter that won't vote themselves.
In Switzerland we have mail-in voting since many years and it is the most used voting option.
The way it works to ensure that votes aren't fraudulent / duplicate votes while providing voter privacy is as follows:
Inside the main envelope there is your transmission card ("Stimmrechtsausweis") which is signed by you and a separate anonymous return envelope with your actual votes.
When it arrives in the municipality the transmission card will be verrified and (if valid) the still closed return envelope will be put into the ballot for later counting.
In Germany, you're required to submit your address of residence to a municipal office. When there's an election, you'll get a notification sent to this address. At your assigned polling station (which, at least for city dwellers, is usually within walking distance), you can just show the notification, no ID required. Or, if you forgot the notification card, you can show your ID, that works, too.
We do have a central registry of every citizen, so I guess that might scare some Americans.
You don’t need that though, you could pick up your registration at any municipality with your ID. That’s how I vote, I work from before the voting starts to after it closes, so I vote via mail.
In Germany it's either the voting papers sent to your primary residency (same database used to issue ID cards and passports) or your passport / ID card in case you forgot / lost your voting papers. Easy enough, even if the voting papers are a lot easier in practical terms.
AFAIK German law doesn't care how my filled out and double-sealed vote gets to the election office. Although I also don't see a point of why I'd hand it to some party representative when I can just drop it in a mailbox (I guess it might make sense as a service for less mobile people - who also can authorize someone to go fetch the voting materials for them), and I'd guess people just going round and ask to collect vote envelopes would cause lots of suspicion - door-to-door canvassing isn't really a thing here.
In Germany, you have two envelopes, outer and inner. The inner envelope contains your anonymous voting slip. I think it’s basically the same one you get when voting in person. (Haven’t been there for a long time.) It’s what goes into the voting box.
The outer envelope contains the sealed (invalid otherwise) inner envelope and an affidavit where you declare that the vote was your own blah blah. This also doubles as your voting registration (dunno how to precisely translate it, it’s a paper your receive that allows you to vote wherever or via mail).
So the security is that it’s perjury if you’re not voting properly. The anonymity is because the inner envelope is only opened when counting. The outer envelope is gone by then.
Here in Norway at least, all voting is on paper ballot.
You receive an election card (valgkort) in the mail to bring to the polling station containing all your info. ID is also required.
If you forget this card, they can print it out for you.
Then you enter the booth containing party lists. You can't "punch" the wrong party as each have their own ballot. You can erase/add/reprioritize names on the party list you choose though.
Then you put this ballot into an anonymous envelope.
This envelope is then put into another envelope along with your election card.
When they count it, they pull out the ballot envelope and the election card, register that you have voted, then someone else will open and count the actual vote.
In Germany every person eligible to vote just gets a letter telling you the day of the vote and your voting station (and a list of stuff being voted on, local elections usually coincide with more important ones). At voting day (a Sunday) you go to your polling station with that letter and photo id and after five minutes you have cast your vote and are on your way.
It's dead simple. But it hinges on the state having a database with every citizen's address. As I understand it such an idea would be very unpopular in the US.
There’s a lot of work that needs to be done for mail-in votes. I only have first-hand experience with the German voting system, but from what I read the US system is similar: The actual ballot is in a sealed envelope. This envelope together with a signed paper (“Wahlschein” in Germany) is in a second envelope that goes in the mail. The process of counting that vote starts with opening the outer envelope and verifying that the ballot was issued to the person signing. Then verify that the inner envelope is properly sealed to ensure that the vote is actually secret. Collect the inner envelope with the actual filled-in ballot. No counting has happened yet, but this verification costs considerable time. All of this could be done even before Election Day with no effect on voter suppression - no one at that point can actually know the vote.
In theory, even counting could be done as long as no result is leaked, though there’d be a risk.
Explicitly not allowing the preprocessing - and as far as I followed the news, that’s what happened in PA - seems like a pretty clear cut case of “we want to draw the count out.” to me.
God I'm happy to live in a country where this data doesn't even exist.
Voting in Germany is secret. You get your voting information automatically if you are eligible and you send either a anonymous letter or take a pen and go to put an X on a piece of paper.
Well you need a home too to vote? Or how do they send you the envelope otherwise? Isn't that a tax as well. I could count tons on items, where's the line? Transport to polling station? Clothes to show up?
In Spain is the same. But political parties send you also a copy and an envelope. So you can bring your ballot from home.
If the envelope contains more than one vote, but all are the same, it counts as one. If the envelop contains more than one vote but they are different it does not count.
In the voting school there are randomly chosen citizens and party representatives that identify the voters, all adults must have a national ID, and count the votes.
It works, and it will need a massive amount of people to change a significant amount of votes.
This is one thing I like about Germany, so you when you move you have to signed paper by the landlord that you're indeed living there. Then you take it to a government building and you "register." Every German is automatically registered and before a vote, maybe a month before hand will get a letter in the mail. They have to use this paper to vote or they can request a mail in ballot. You're assigned a place to vote(you have to go here). But they're always(from my experience really close to the place of residence.
Why should somebody go through the hassle of register himself for voting? Where I leave all the persons eligible for voting receive the voting certificate one month in advance. An ID card and the certificate are all you need to enter the polling station.
I don't know how it's done in the USA, but in Germany voting by post has to be carried out before the day of the election. The actual postal votes are stored and only opened on the day of the election. After somebody send in their postal vote they can go to the public voting office and declare to invalidate their postal vote. The people counting the postal votes will get a list with invalidated votes and remove these envelopes before the votes are opened. The person who invalidated can then either do another postal vote or vote at the ballot box.
So in Germany postal voting is secured against selling votes.
You can either just send back the envelope with your vote via normal postal service for free, put it into a voting drop box that some places have, or bring voting id and ballot to a polling station.
I’m not completely sure if you need other form of ID when voting in person. But don’t think that would be a problem since everyone has a national id card.
https://www.ch.ch/en/demokratie/votes/how-to-complete-a-ball...
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