Criminal charges for allegedly forged signatures
Published: Wednesday, Sep 25th 2024, 11:40
Updated At: Wednesday, Sep 25th 2024, 12:40
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The Federal Chancellery has filed a second criminal complaint on suspicion of electoral fraud. The charges are directed against persons unknown. The evidence indicated that a total of 950 signatures from six cantons for five different popular initiatives had allegedly been forged.
The criminal complaint submitted to the Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland includes suspected cases from several cantons from the current year, as announced by the Federal Chancellery (FC) on Wednesday.
The FC came across the suspicious cases while checking and counting signature lists. Since 2022, the FCh has been carrying out in-depth checks, which also take into account signatures that have already been declared invalid by the municipalities. In doing so, it has identified anomalies that point to forgeries, such as different handwriting in the case of multiple signatures by the same person.
Several indications of counterfeiting
Frequent reasons for suspected forgery include false dates of birth, misspelled names, misspelled or invented addresses and signature lists that do not meet the legal requirements, the report continued.
Furthermore, the criminal complaint bundles fifteen indications of forgeries that were brought to the attention of the FCh by municipalities and cantons and in one case by an individual.
Second criminal complaint
In 2022, the FC had already filed a criminal complaint against persons unknown on suspicion that signatures for popular initiatives may have been forged. New evidence was added to the complaint twice, always involving reports from one canton.
Suspected cases of allegedly forged signatures and unfair practices in signature collections were made public by a Tamedia investigation at the beginning of September. Commercial companies are alleged to have cheated when collecting signatures for popular initiatives.
Last week, the affair took on a new twist: according to the Federal Chancellery, certain organizations that collect signatures for money are said to have done so without a mandate and urged committees to buy these unordered signatures.
Federal Chancellery plans round table
In order to protect the integrity of the collection process, the FC is focusing not only on criminal prosecution but also on prevention and improving processes. According to a press release, Chancellor Viktor Rossi intends to convene a permanent round table in the near future. Providers and buyers of signatures should commit to transparency and rules of conduct that prevent signature forgery.
A survey published on Wednesday by the Leewas research institute showed that a large majority want to ban the purchase of signatures for initiatives from professional collectors. 84 percent said yes or rather yes to such a ban.
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