Canton Zug, 13.06.2024

The vote on the Transparency Initiative will be repeated

According to the cantonal government, the vote on 9 June would have gone in favour of the counter-proposal.

On voting Sunday last week, the cantonal government (Kantonsrat) declared the vote on the Transparency Initiative and the counter-proposal to be invalid due to irregularities in the counting by the municipal voting offices.

The cantonal government has now explained in detail how the vote was declared invalid. In addition, the vote will be repeated on 22 September. A federal ballot will also take place on this Sunday.

Voting records are to be made public
According to a statement, the Zug cantonal government wants to inform the public transparently about all circumstances and events. It has therefore decided to publish the voting records for the constitutional initiative, the counter-proposal and the run-off question.

According to these records, the transparency initiative would have been rejected by 20,251 votes against to 16,880 votes in favour (45.46% in favour, 54.54% against). The counter-proposal would have been accepted with 20,159 votes in favour and 16,554 against (54.91% in favour and 45.09% against). In the run-off question, the counter-proposal prevailed with 20,790 votes in favour of the initiative to 14,921 votes against (58.22% in favour of the counter-proposal, 41.78% in favour of the initiative).

Posters (including some for the transparency initiative, left) in Cham          Picture: Matthias Jurt

Changes made at the request of the municipalities
In April, at the request of Zug's two largest municipalities, the government agreed to a redesign of the ballot paper that had already been approved in March. The municipalities had asked for perforations to be made between the individual questions. This would lead to easier handling, particularly with regard to the vote on the transparency initiative, its counter-proposal and the run-off question.

However, after the counting and reporting the results of the municipalities to the canton, it was clear that only four of the eleven municipalities had implemented the instructions correctly. "There were minor deviations in three municipalities, but there were more significant deviations in the remaining municipalities," the press release states.

"The decisive moment - the opening of the ballot paper envelopes and the associated check for completeness or the presence of all the partial ballot papers - could not and cannot be reconstructed in retrospect," the press release continues. "These circumstances ultimately led to the immediate decision of the government council to declare the vote invalid."

"The cantonal government regrets that the design adjustments to the ballot paper requested by the municipalities to ease their burden have now led to the vote having to be declared invalid," said Governor (Statthalter) Andreas Hostettler in the press release.

Note:
The Zug Transparency Initiative is a cantonal constitutional initiative that calls for the disclosure of finances and vested interests in Zug politics. It was launched by the Young Alternative and was put to the vote on 9 June 2024.

A counter-proposal from the Cantonal Council was put to the vote at the same time as the initiative. If the initiative and the counter-proposal are accepted by voters, a run-off question will decide which law comes into force.

Voters were thereby asked to vote: