After years of preparation, the canton of Neuchâtel is reintroducing electronic voting, with a rollout planned from November 2026. For me this milestone is a special one: I built the citizen registration services that let voters opt in to the electronic channel on the Guichet Unique platform. In this article I want to share, at a high level, what that work involved and why Switzerland's approach to e-voting makes it such an interesting engineering challenge.
Why E-Voting in Switzerland Is Different
Switzerland votes more often than almost any other country, and a large share of citizens already vote by post. Electronic voting is offered as an additional, optional channel — never a replacement. Since the revised federal ordinances came into force in 2022, only fully verifiable systems are allowed: a voter can check that their vote was recorded as intended, and observers can verify that all votes were counted correctly, all without breaking vote secrecy.
That bar shapes everything. The work is less about clever features and more about correctness, traceability, and respecting a framework designed around trust in the democratic process.
Where Registration Fits In
Before anyone can vote electronically, the canton needs a reliable way to manage who is eligible and who has chosen to use the channel. That is the part I worked on. At a high level, the registration services cover:
- A citizen-facing registration page where eligible voters can sign up for the electronic channel — verifying their voting rights along the way.
- An opt-out flow that records the reason a citizen gives when they choose to unregister.
- An administration page for canton staff to manage the list of citizens registered for e-voting.
The goal throughout was a workflow that administrators can trust and that holds up to the scrutiny a democratic system deserves.
Built on eCH Standards
A lot of the rigor comes from the eCH standards, the official Swiss e-government standards that guarantee interoperability between municipal, cantonal, and federal systems. Working within these standards (for example those covering voter and election registers, and political-rights data) means the platform speaks the same language as the rest of the Swiss e-government ecosystem, rather than inventing its own formats.
In practice, this keeps data consistent across systems and makes the whole process easier to verify — which is exactly the point.
From Project to Production
Moving from a working system to one that real citizens depend on is a step up: it means careful testing, documentation, and close collaboration with the Neuchâtel public IT service (SIEN) to make sure every requirement is met. Seeing that effort culminate in a production rollout for an actual vote is genuinely rewarding.
Conclusion
Contributing to e-voting in Neuchâtel has been one of the most meaningful projects of my career so far — a place where careful engineering directly supports democratic participation, making voting more accessible for citizens abroad, people with reduced mobility, and anyone who values the option. I'm looking forward to seeing the channel in action from November 2026.
Update — July 2026
Since this article was published the date has been set: the electronic channel will be open for the federal vote of 29 November 2026. And demand turned out stronger than expected — 6,500 registrations in the two weeks after the announcement of 16 June, more than 7,100 by early July. Federal law caps the channel at 30% of the electorate, roughly 39,700 people for federal votes in Neuchâtel.
Every one of those registrations goes through the flow described above. Shipping a form is one thing; watching it absorb several thousand requests in a few days is another. For reference, in February 2019 — the last vote before the suspension — 4,759 people voted electronically. But those were ballots cast rather than registrations: the comparison has its limits, and the real test is still ahead.
The reintroduction also remains subject to federal authorisation, expected in September 2026.
For the official context, see the canton of Neuchâtel's press release, this RTS news report and swissinfo.ch on the 7,100 registrations. You can also read more about the platform on my Guichet Unique project page.