Given that a majority of (the voter majority of) cantons needs to be in favor (“Ständemehr”), a ~16 percentage point increase in yes voters would have allowed for the initiative to pass. That’s a pretty large difference.
Things that could have been done to make it more likely that the initiative passes:
Release shocking results of an undercover investigation ~2 weeks before the vote. Maybe this could have led to a 2-10% increase?
Have a much larger campaign budget ($5m or so). Maybe another 2-7%?
So with some extra resources and luck, this may have been possible to win, perhaps.
Release shocking results of an undercover investigation ~2 weeks before the vote. Maybe this could have led to a 2-10% increase?
My understanding is, that they did try to do this with an undercover investigation report on poultry farming. But it was only in the news for a very short time and I’m guessing didn’t have a large effect.
A further thing might have helped:
Show clearly how the initiative would have improved animal welfare. The whole campaign was a bit of a mess in this regard. In the “voter information booklet” the only clearly understandable improvement was about maximum livestocks – which only affected laying hens. This lead to this underwhelming infographic in favour of the initiative [left column: current standards, righ column: standards if initiative passes].
The initiative committee does claim on their website, that the initiative will lead to more living space for farmed animals. But it never advertised how much. I struggled to find the space requirement information with a quick google search, before a national newspaper reported on it.
Given that a majority of (the voter majority of) cantons needs to be in favor (“Ständemehr”), a ~16 percentage point increase in yes voters would have allowed for the initiative to pass. That’s a pretty large difference.
Things that could have been done to make it more likely that the initiative passes:
Release shocking results of an undercover investigation ~2 weeks before the vote. Maybe this could have led to a 2-10% increase?
Have a much larger campaign budget ($5m or so). Maybe another 2-7%?
So with some extra resources and luck, this may have been possible to win, perhaps.
My understanding is, that they did try to do this with an undercover investigation report on poultry farming. But it was only in the news for a very short time and I’m guessing didn’t have a large effect.
A further thing might have helped:
Show clearly how the initiative would have improved animal welfare.
The whole campaign was a bit of a mess in this regard. In the “voter information booklet” the only clearly understandable improvement was about maximum livestocks – which only affected laying hens. This lead to this underwhelming infographic in favour of the initiative [left column: current standards, righ column: standards if initiative passes].
The initiative committee does claim on their website, that the initiative will lead to more living space for farmed animals. But it never advertised how much. I struggled to find the space requirement information with a quick google search, before a national newspaper reported on it.
Excellent points, thank you!