Under the current regulations and conditions, blind and visually impaired Swiss citizens cannot exercise their voting rights fully independently. They are dependent on the support of an assistant when filling in their ballot papers. A successful pilot project in the canton of Basel-Stadt demonstrated a few years ago that e-voting is a valid way of enabling people with visual impairments to participate independently in the voting process. Since this year, a trial operation with a limited number of voters has been running in three Swiss cantons. Swiss citizens living abroad and voters with a disability as special target groups are exempt from the limitation restrictions for e-voting. The first votes in which blind and visually impaired people were able to participate via e-voting - again in the canton of Basel-Stadt - took place in June 2023. In October 2023, they were also able to take part in the national elections via e-voting. Other cantons will join the trial in the coming years. The Swiss federation of the blind and visually impaired people (SBV) has long been calling for the introduction of e-voting in Switzerland, as this is the only solution that guarantees autonomous participation for people with visual impairments in both votes and elections.
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