Switzerland
01-11-2019
Noviembre 2019
The University of Geneve and the city of Sion are organizing a jury of citizen that will analize political program.
The city of Sion, in Switzerland, is experimenting citizen recommendations on the official political brochures sent to them before the votes in order to that will help citizens understand issues of political programs, have neutral information, filter political campaigns and denounce the veracity of political arguments
The City of Sion in Switzerland is experimenting with a process of participatory democracy, the Demoscan pilot project. Carried by the University of Geneva and the City of Sion, the idea is to accompany the political recommendations, intended to inform the citizens, by citizen recommendations on the official brochures sent to them before the votes. This project is scheduled for November 2019 so that it can be tested for the federal election in February 2020.
The process consists of bringing together citizens who will discuss the political objects put to the vote and express their recommendations regarding these objects. To do this, four days will be devoted during which 20 citizens will analyze the issues of a vote. It is a representative panel of 20 volunteer participants selected from the 2000 citizens selected by lot and invited to participate.
For two consecutive weekends, the panel learns about the political programs and has to debate and finally write a one-page report that will be distributed to citizens with official political brochures.
The group will be accompanied by neutral experts and will be able to hear supporters and opponents of the chosen topic. It'll write a citizen declaration summarizing the issues of the vote and give the result of the vote in the panel. This report will be distributed to the citizens of Lausanne. After the federal vote, a survey will be conducted among the population to verify the impact of the citizen declaration on the formation of the opinion of the voters and on their participation rate.
This process is therefore not only intended for the election of representatives; it could also apply to referendums or any other object subject to voting. This jury of citizens is inspired by the Citizen Initiative Review existing in Oregon, in the United States, since about ten years.
The interest of this experiment is to get citizens to take a critical look at the candidates' political programs and to attach it to the brochures. This panel must write a report that will help citizens better understand the issues of political programs, have neutral information, filter political campaigns and denounce the veracity of political arguments.
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