Yes I can !

Yes I can vote. This is the first time in 7 years that I could vote from here in the Philippines. I got back all my citizen’s rights. Here is the proof:

For your information: Any Swiss citizen has the right to vote and the right to be elected where ever he/she lives in the world. The only thing he/she has to do is to register with the local Swiss embassy. One then gets by snail-mail all the needed information to vote or elect. Unfortunately the Philippine post had always been much too slow to deliver these papers in time. And also unfortunately, up to now, one had to fill in the papers and send them back to Switzerland. This had been impossible.

But now voting using the Internet is enabled:

I got all the needed forms and information this morning by our local PhilPost staff. Since they had brought me the mail from the Police office in Lausanne, they bring me all mail that looks “official”. The forms even arrived three (3) weeks ahead of the voting date of May 18, 2014.

The letter arrived on April 26 in Cagayan de Oro and on April 28 in Mambajao. And this morning, April 29, it arrived on my desk. The procedure on the website had been simple and fast – in less than 5 minutes I had voted. GREAT!

I feel again to be a 100% citizen of one of the oldest democracies in the world. I could say YES or NO to the following subjects:

• Article in the Swiss constitution making sure that everybody gets fast and high quality medical services.
• New law prohibiting convict pedophiles to work again with children
• Minimum salary for everybody working in Switzerland
• Acquisition of 22 Gripen E fighter aircraft  by the Swiss air-force

That’s real democracy. That’s Switzerland.

My thanks go first of all to the staff of PhilPost who advanced the mail at turbo-speed. I also thank the “Service des votations” in Geneva for having sent the mail as fast as possible. I thank the Swiss people who accepted voting on Internet. And last but not least I thank the IT specialist who created a safe but simple tool that gives me back all my citizen’s rights.