Figure 1.
Average number of referenda per voting day in different periods.
Since the first federal referendum in 1848, voters have usually been given the chance to go to the polls between one and four times a year to make decisions on a minimum of one and a maximum of nine distinct federal referenda issues.
Figure 2.
Histogram of number of referenda on the same day from 1848 to 2009.
The x-axis indicates the number of referenda on the same day, and the y-axis shows the total number of referenda (without counterproposals) for the respective category. Although voters usually decide on five or fewer referenda on the same day, since 1848, there have been occasions on which nine referenda decisions were made. Although seven referenda decisions were made on May 17, 1992, there is no record of eight referenda decisions on a single day.
Table 1.
Parliamentary influence on constituent referenda choices.
Table 2.
Refinement using number of referenda on the same day.
Table 3.
Parliamentary influence on constituent referenda choices in the presence of interest group recommendations.