Details
Each of the 26 cantons is a constituency. The number of deputies of each constituency depends on the population of the canton, but a canton must have at least one deputy. Each voter gets to elect the deputies of the canton he or she lives in and thus, each voter has as many votes as there are deputies to elect. A voter cannot give more than two votes to the same person. Note that a voter can vote for persons of different parties making it impossible to count the number of votes a party has received at the national level. To determine a party's strength the notion of "fictional voter" has to be introduced and is defined by the Swiss Federal Statistical Institute as such: number of votes obtain by party A * number of valid ballot / number of valid votes. Even if the ballot is valid, a voter can decide not to use all of the ballot's votes resulting in invalid or blank votes. Also note that number of valid votes / number of valid ballot closely match the number of deputies a canton needs to elect. Actually, this number represent the average number of valid votes a voter has used. The formula can then be summed up by: number of votes obtain by party A / average of valid votes per voters. The result will give you the number of fictional voter for a given party in a given canton. A total number of fictional voter can then be established and the party strength can be deduced. However, the notion of fictional voters is not used to determine the number of deputies a party can have nor the election's turnout. The number of deputies a party can have is determined at the cantonal level using the proportional representation with the Hagenbach-Bischoff system (except in cantons with only one deputy to elect). The election's turnout is computed in the following way: number of valid ballot casted / number of registered voters.
Read more about this topic: National Council (Switzerland)
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