On-time trains, counted grazing animals, sparkling clean streets – well, which country is it about? That’s right, Switzerland. A country that literally screams precision. Or let’s say: a country in which people at least trust, without giving it much thought, the numbers that the authorities announce as the official final results at the end of an election day.
But now it looks as if Switzerland and its observers have to rethink a few things. The Swiss Interior Ministry sent the message on Wednesday afternoon, day three after the federal parliamentary elections a meek message. The Federal Statistical Office “discovered an error in the calculation of the aggregate national party strengths during quality checks on its election statistics.” Three cantons transmitted their data correctly to the federal government, but it was then processed incorrectly there. The result: the parties’ share of voters in the published final result is too high or too low. So you miscalculated. Yes indeed. In Switzerland.
Now the differences to the values published on Sunday evening are not huge. The right-wing populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) did not grow quite as much as expected and only increased to 27.9 percent instead of 28.6 percent. The middle also gained slightly less and stands at 14.1 instead of 14.6 percent; for the FDP it is 14.3 instead of 14.4 percent. The correction brought growth to the left-wing parties: the Social Democrats achieved 18.3 percent instead of just 18 percent. The Greens only shrank to 9.8 instead of 9.4 percent, and the Green Liberals also lost less and are now at 7.6 instead of 7.2 percent.
Decimal places will probably be interpreted more carefully in the future
As the Interior Ministry further reports, the correction does not change the distribution of seats in the National Council. But because in Switzerland, which is used to stability, people also discuss decimal places after parliamentary elections, the whole thing is now a bit embarrassing. Since Sunday, a number of texts have already appeared that are dedicated to the slightly higher proportion of voters from the center party. Ultimately – at least that was the facts as of Wednesday afternoon – the party overtook the venerable FDP, the so-called Freisinn, which used to be the most important and largest party in the country. There have even been swan songs about this party because it only became the fourth strongest force for the first time – or so it was thought.
And now? But no end to freedom? And as far as the SVP is concerned: is it actually just a “shift to the right” instead of a shift to the right? One can assume that in some editorial teams the decimal places will be interpreted a little more cautiously in the future. And the country will certainly do everything in its power to ensure that something like this never happens again. According to Wednesday’s statement, Swiss Interior Minister Alain Berset was immediately informed of the error and initiated a review of the processes. In the future there will be “a more comprehensive automated plausibility check of the calculations” and “even more control staff on election day”. The world champion of accuracy doesn’t want to put up with such a mishap.