The short version is that it’s pretty easy for anyone to launch one if you have $500k in funding, it’s really hard to get the wording of the constitutional amendment right, and the base rate of initiatives passing is just ~10% so it’s hard to actually be successful. I already published a similar write-up here, which explains some of the background, and there is a general overview of ballot measures.
I’m not planning to produce a longer write-up because I don’t expect me producing a write-up will directly enable useful work. I don’t expect more Swiss ballot initiatives to be especially promising (though there might be cool ideas around), and ballot initiatives work quite differently elsewhere. The basics of how Swiss ballot initiatives work are easy to google and well-documented in the media (including English ones). I also wasn’t involved with the campaigning, so I can’t really comment on that.
The short version is that it’s pretty easy for anyone to launch one if you have $500k in funding, it’s really hard to get the wording of the constitutional amendment right, and the base rate of initiatives passing is just ~10% so it’s hard to actually be successful. I already published a similar write-up here, which explains some of the background, and there is a general overview of ballot measures.
I’m not planning to produce a longer write-up because I don’t expect me producing a write-up will directly enable useful work. I don’t expect more Swiss ballot initiatives to be especially promising (though there might be cool ideas around), and ballot initiatives work quite differently elsewhere. The basics of how Swiss ballot initiatives work are easy to google and well-documented in the media (including English ones). I also wasn’t involved with the campaigning, so I can’t really comment on that.