The Swiss law-making process is a complicated and at the same time very fascinating procedure, from the original ideas up until its execution by the respective powers. Each law must go through an extensive process where it will be written, discussed, re-written and further analysed by multiple people until an eventual popular vote. In the case of Switzerland, most of the laws are born in the parliament. But there’s a speciality: the popular initiative, an extremely powerful democratic tool allowing any group of citizens to make up a new law.
For a popular initiative to succeed, those launching the initiative need to collect 100,000 signatures from people entitled to vote within 18 months. By signing such a list, people declare themselves to be in favour of the initiative. Parliament is responsible for examining whether the initiative respects the principles of consistency of form, unity of subject matter and the mandatory rules of international law. If this is not the case, Parliament may declare the initiative totally or partially invalid. If Parliament decides that the initiative is valid, it is put to a popular vote.
The purpose of this project is to make popular initiative as much accessible as possible in order to enhance the participation of the population in this process. Our proposal is to build a virtual space as a platform to enable everyone to easily launch a popular initiative. Thanks to the gamification of the user experience, people can join the platform, propose a new initive and carry it on through a credits based structure. Credits are required to progress and are obtained by convincing people to follow or sign your initiative. It is also possible to access the platform just as a visitor to debate with other, check and sign for ongoing initiatives.