Talk:2011 Swiss federal election

Infobox

{{Infobox election}} is not designed for the peculiarities of Swiss federal elections. We might create a dedicated {{Swiss federal election infobox}} template, or, as long as we don't, we need to reflect on what is WP:DUE for this particular case instead of just naively filling out the infobox parameters. Among other things, compared to say countries with two-party systems, the role of the party leaders on the national scale is very limited. Indeed, there are significant differences between the cantonal parties within a single national party. The election can and should be broken down by canton in the article body, but the overall infobox should only given the most relevant information, without being sidetracked by mugshots of chairmen of the national parties. --dab (𒁳) 16:52, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Final results

The figures for Vaud came out an hour ago.[1][2]. In terms of seats in the National Council, we now have definite results. The only change to the projected results is that the Communists lose their only seat to the Social Democrats. We are still waiting for the precise number of votes, but they should be up in a matter of hours. The elections are still "ongoing" for another three weeks of course, because of the 2nd ballot for the Council of States, but this shouldn't stop us from reporting on the National Council elections as settled. --dab (𒁳) 17:06, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Infobox

I propose to include only the major (SVP, SP, FDP, CVP) and medium parties (Greens, GLP, BDP) in the infobox. There are too many minor parties to include all of them and it would be arbitrary to include some of them and others not. In my opinion, the seven parties with most votes and seats are enough for the infobox. Your thoughts? Regards, --RJFF (talk) 20:36, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

well, you have a point, there are seven parties with fraction-strength (more than five seats), and it would make sense to list those. It's just that with the three-column arrangement, listing seven parties leaves an empty space in the third row were I thought we can as well list numbers 8 and 9, as their inclusion wastes no additional screen space. But if you want to kick out EVP and Lega from the infobox, go ahead.

I would argue in any case that the "election infobox" template isn't very well suited for Swiss federal elections, and maybe this is the right time to come up with a dedicated template for these articles. Nobody forces us to use the generic template if we find it doesn't do a good job. --dab (𒁳) 06:54, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Voting figures

What is the source for these voting figures? They're not given at the source provided. The article says that the Socialists polled 450,693 votes. But because Switzerland has multiple voting, the Socialists polled 2,558,074 votes in Canton Zurich (which elects 34 deputies) alone. Can the author explain how these figures were derived? Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 05:26, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

yes, good question. See my comment here. The short answer is that these are sums done by Wikipedians at de-wiki. They are weighed sums of votes divided by the number of votes per person in the respective canton. I would argue that doing simple weighed sums isn't too far in forbidden fields of "WP:OR", and if the figures are good enough for de-wiki, we can also adopt them. --dab (𒁳) 06:56, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

That isn't really good enough. Firstly these figures are bogus, in the sense that are not official election results, yet they are given a false air of authenticity by a reference to the Interior Ministry website. It is nowhere stated that the figures are in fact somebody's unofficial calculation. (I thought there was a rule against "original research" here.) Secondly, presenting figures like this gives a misleading impression of the Swiss voting system. Nobody can in fact say how many people in Switzerland voted for a Socialist candidate, because most voters (all except those in the single-deputy cantons) could spread their votes across multiple parties if they chose. To represent that 450,693 voters made a choice to vote for the Socialists is therefore highly misleading. These figures should be deleted. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 10:16, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I am instinctively very sceptical about producing any such results and am very hawkish when it comes to original research. However, here's why I think they ought to be included:

1. Media outlets - ie reliable sources - do use national vote percentages, despite the afore-mentioned difficulty in doing so. These vote shares corroborate exactly the vote shares replicated by these published figures. Compare, for example, to the other method - just adding up the total number of votes - which had been used in the template previously, but skews the results towards large cantons (eg it increased the EVP's vote share by over 50%).
2. Reliable sources also state what the turnout was. We know how many people are registered to vote, so combining these two figures, the total number of votes is also publicly available and published by reliable sources. Because reliable sources publish the total number of votes and the vote share, it is not inappropriate to merely multiply the two and reach the figures published herein.
3. Further, the numbers do 'represent' something. They represent how many equivalent 'party votes' there were, ie how many people cast their 34 votes in Zurich for the 34 SVP candidates. I would object to saying 'X many people voted for the SVP', because that is wrong (it's necessarily an underestimate), but the current representation does mean something.
4. In past Swiss elections, reliable sources have later published these figures that have been reached by the same methodology (end-of-year political compendia, and so on). Thus, it is a figure that is notable.

Thus, because it represents a real 'thing', bceause it is a notable statistic, because it necessarily represents a calculation that reliable sources do themselves, and because it is corroborated by reliable sources, I suggest editors adopt the exception to WP:OR covered by WP:CALC. Bastin 12:19, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

Why not simply mention the metholodgy in the article (as I've done in the german Wikipedia)? So it's clear for everyone that is not actually 641'106 people who voted for the SVP, but that this is a statistical figures (that nevertheless "represents" something)? Unfortunatly, I'm not as used to the necessary english vocabulary, so I can't do it myself. For the rest, I completly agree with Bastin.--So-Gast(English) (talk) 20:57, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

If it's the case that the Swiss media publish "conjectural" figures like this, than an example of such figures should be used here, with a note saying that they derive from a media source and are not actual official election results. That would solve the "OR" problem and make it clear what the status of the figures is. If that can't be done, then there needs to be a comment attached to the current figures explaining how they were derived. I might also say that the technique of taking the sum of all votes cast (for example) for Socialist candidates in Zurich and dividing that by 34, only works if all voters in Zurich voted for 34 candidates. Does the election law require them to do that? Or could they vote for (say) only five candidates and then stop? Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 02:27, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

The Federal Statistical Office (Switzerland) published such conjectural figures for the larger parties (http://www.politik-stat.ch/nrw2011CH_de.html). And yes, people in Zurich could only vote for five candidates and then stop. However, if someone in Zurich votes (for example) 17 socialists and 17 green candidates, this counts as 17 votes for the socialists and 17 votes for the greens, so he really gave half of his votes to each of this parties, so it can be said in a certain way that he represents 0,5 voters for the socialist and 0,5 voters for the green party. It can also be said that several cantons (including Zurich and Aargau) use exactly these weighed votes to calculate the distribution of seats in their cantonal legislatures (in the so called de: Doppelter Pukelsheim methode).--So-Gast(English) (talk) 10:20, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, this entire discussion concerns only the "votes" column of this table. The seat and percentage columns are, I hope, completely uncontroversial and solidly based on the reference given (the official results), and they can also be compared to any number of news websites.

Regarding the "votes" column: it is not essential. If you think these figures are dodgy, we can just get rid of this column altogether. But my impression is that the people who call these numbers "conjectural" have not really undestood what they are. They are not conjectural. There are actually 641,106 people who voted SVP, if "voting SVP" means sending in the SVP list. Voters understand (I hope) that they can cast mixed votes, i.e. you can vote partially SVP and partially something else. In this case, you are splitting your vote.

Say, you live in Zurich, and you take the SVP list, but you strike two names and replace them with candidates of the Social Democrats. You have now split your vote, you have given 32/34 or 0.94 votes to the SVP, and 2/34 or 0.06 votes to the Social Democrats. This is how the system works, and this is what these figures express. There is nothing "conjectural" or dodgy about them. So, if you have two people, one voting 6% SP and 94% SVP, and the other voting 94% SP and 6% SVP, you get a sum of one vote for SP and one vote for SVP. The system is voter-friendly because it gives those you want to the freedom to cast more tactical votes, while the marjority of people will just cast "integer votes" by sending in one of the party lists provided. --dab (𒁳) 13:28, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for those explanations, which do clarify the meaning of the figures. Nevertheless, if these figures are to be sourced to the Federal Chancellery, as they currently are, then those exact figures must be findable at the Federal Chancellery website, and as far as I can see they are not. Can So-Gast show us where they are at the link provided? The statement that the SVP polled 641,106 votes must be sourced to somewhere where that figure actually appears, and at the moment it isn't. It isn't good enough to say that someone at de.wikipedia calculated it. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 03:00, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I agree in principle, so I don't object if you remove this column. If you do so, just make sure to retain the figure of 2,410,125 votes in total, which is certainly not a "conjectural" number, but the actual number of votes cast. --dab (𒁳) 12:56, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I know how to delete things from tables. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 22:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The infobox (again)

Bastin, if you are going to disagree with people's edit and revert them, I would be obliged if you contributed, or at least read the discussion on talk instead of communicating via rhetorical questions in edit summaries.[3]

Both points you addressed in the edit summary linked are addressed coherently on this talkpage. I don't see you reacting to the points raised. WP:BRD says you are free to just implement your idea of article improvements until you run into opposition. At that point, you are expected to discuss before you revert.

The infobox so far does more harm than good. Perhaps we should get rid of it altogether. It doesn't add anything valuable beyond what is already summarized in the tables in the article body. It is also incomplete at this point, because it would ultimately combine the seats of the Federal Assembly. This cannot be done yet because 19 seats have yet to be assigned.

After that, it will be completely impossible to give meaningful figures for the "popular vote" for each party, because the final results will be a conflation of a large number of separate elections.

If the infbox is to be given a brief summary of the seats for each party, fine, it has its use. But if people are going to insist in turning it into a short biography of each party leader, I will oppose its inclusion. --dab (𒁳) 08:31, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I apologise - I was unaware that you'd opened discussions here. You'll note that WP:BRD means that I revert (back to including as much data as possible: the original position) and if you run into opposition, you discuss it to reach a consensus. So I'm grateful that you've left the data in the infobox this time.

The infobox summarises the National Council - as, for example, the infobox in Australian federal election, 2010 refers to the House of Representatives, not the Senate. The popular vote, meanwhile, refers to the standardised vote.

Nonetheless, I have been a long-time advocate of splitting the 'Swiss federal election, X' articles into 'Swiss National Council election, X' and 'Swiss Council of States election, X', per - for example - United States elections, 2010, United States House of Representatives elections, 2010, United States Senate elections, 2010. I have no idea why we don't do that - after all, we do have separate articles for elections to the Federal Council. They are elections to different bodies, using different electoral methods, on partially different days. Bastin 11:12, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

It's not a big deal, I am sure we can come to a consensus if we just exchange opinions here. I was of the opinion that my revision had "as much data as possible", listing nine parties. As I said above, listing nine parties in the infobox is slightly arbitrary, and there can be differences in opinion on how to best do this. At present, the infobox is redundant anyway, as it just duplicates the National Council table. Ultimately, the infobox should of course summarize the sum of the Federal Assembly, which will make it no longer redundant.

Frankly, I do not think it would be a great idea to split NC and CoS election articles, but of course, it is a valid possibility which may have its advantages. But if we split these articles, we can certainly get rid of the infoboxes altogether, as they will no longer serve any purpose. We could also adopt the approach of de-wiki, which keeps the summary of the elections on a single page, but which has two separate sub-pages giving detailed results for each election by canton. If we can be bothered to reproduce this detailed information on en-wiki, this is probably what we should do, too. --dab (𒁳) 10:57, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Swiss PR

Can someone familiar with the Swiss system of PR explain how in Basel-Stadt the CVP won a seat with 14,528 votes, while the Greens didn't win a seat with 33,422 votes? Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 11:15, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

The CVP (6.5%) had a Listenverbindung with GLP (5.8%), EVP (2.5%) and BDP (2.2%). The sum of these figures is 17%, which all go to the CVP as the member of this group with the highest vote.

The Greens were unlucky, their Listenverbindung with the SP resulted in two seats for the SP. Greens+SP between them got 42.5%, which means they get two seats. As the SP had just a little bit more than twice the Greens' number of votes, both seats go to them. If 0.8% had voted Green instead of SP, the seat would have gone to the Greens. --dab (𒁳) 12:54, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Alles ist klar, danke. Intelligent Mr Toad (talk) 22:24, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Swiss Party of Labour

The article states that the Swiss Party of Labour retained its single seat. What I found, by reading the detailed results by canton is that the Swiss Party of Labour actually lost its Vaud seat (and only federal seat).

23:38, 10 November 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.214.217.157 (talk)

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