As a rule, four days are set aside each year according to an official calendar for holding popular votes on federal, cantonal and communal proposals. The Federal Chancellery provides comprehensive information on the dates of popular votes and elections.

In Switzerland, you can vote in person or by post (other than in the Canton of Ticino). Those eligible to vote are sent their voting documents by post. If you wish to vote by post, you can send back the completed ballot papers and your signed voter identification card by a certain date. On the weekend of the vote or election, polling stations are opened to allow those eligible to cast their votes at the ballot box.

Any Swiss person who is aged 18 or over and has legal capacity has a vote. Eligible citizens and Swiss citizens living abroad who have registered with their Swiss mission can vote by post on federal issues as well as in elections to the National Council. Depending on the canton, they can vote in elections to the Council of States.

The cantons provide information on the dates of votes and elections, the opening hours of the polling stations, the methods of voting, the cantonal proposals that are being voted on and the results of the votes or the elections.
In the run up to elections, voters often have questions such as: What is a first-past-the-post voting system? What is meant by accumulating votes and vote-splitting? You will find answers to a selection of such questions in the booklet "Get to grips with political rights" published by the Federal Chancellery or in the instructions issued by the Federal Chancellery on the elections to the National Council.
Swiss citizens living abroad can also obtain information on their voting rights from the “Guide for Swiss citizens living abroad”.

The three cantons, Geneva, Neuchâtel and Zurich, have conducted pilot eVoting projects. These pilot projects have been completed and have subsequently been evaluated by the Federal Council in its “Report on pilot projects on eVoting". Parliament acknowledged this report on 19 December (National Council) and on 19 March 2007 respectively (Council of States), and adopted an amendment during its final vote on 23 March 2007 allowing the progressive introduction of eVoting in Switzerland.