How verified polls work

Verified polls let Swiss citizens say how they intend to vote, without anyone, including us, being able to see who answered what. Here is how, step by step.

1. We check that you are a Swiss citizen

You show your Swiss e-ID (swiyu) in your phone wallet. We ask the wallet to confirm that you are a Swiss citizen and 18 or older. The wallet answers with a few details about you, and our server uses them only to calculate a one-way code (a keyed hash). That code is what lets us refuse a second account by the same person, and it cannot be turned back into your details.

What we keep: that you are a Swiss citizen, that you are an adult, the one-way code, and when the check expires (after 12 months at the latest).

What we never keep: your name, birth date, address, document number, photo or the credential itself. They are not saved in our database or in our logs.

2. You get an anonymous ticket

Your device makes a secret ticket and hides it before sending it to us. politika signs it without being able to see it (a blind signature). When your device removes the hiding, it holds a ticket with our valid signature that we have never seen. Each poll has its own keys, so a ticket works for one poll only.

Your answer is sent with the ticket only, without your login. We can check that the ticket is genuine, but not which account it came from. The answer cannot be linked to your account, not even by us.

We only record that your account took part in a poll, so nobody can answer twice. We never record how you answered.

3. When results are shown

Results stay hidden until at least 30 people have answered, so no single answer can be guessed. Individual polls may set a higher number.

Following Swiss practice, no new poll results are published in the 10 days before a vote.

Polls are not surveys

Only people who choose to answer take part, so the result is not representative of all voters. We do not weight, project or forecast. Read a poll as a picture of the people who answered, nothing more.

What politika never does

We never store how a named person answered.
We never sell or pass on your data, and we show no ads.
We never show your real name. In public you appear only under a generated username.
We never tell parties, politicians or authorities how you answered.
We never show results before the threshold is reached or inside the blackout.

An honest limit