You are still allowed to breathe

The Swiss federal parliament currently resides in Flims for the “Sessiun” and features a new electronic device for voting. Votes are cast by each member of the parliament wirelessly from now on. Sounds cool and pretty avant-garde, doesn’t it?

Well, the problem is that the wireless votes didn’t work from the first day on. As it turned out, the frequency these devices operate on and that has been exclusively reserved was being jammed. For this reason, the members of parliament had to stand up/remain seated when voting just like they traditionally did. That is until some pros from the Federal Office Of Communication (OFCOM) tracked down the jammer. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t one jammer, there were ten. For example, there was the electronic ordering system of a restaurant, a modem, and an avalanche warning system interfering with the fundamentals of our democracy. From now on everytime the parliament casts a vote, these devices have to be turned off first and can go back online when the vote is over.

Swiss radio anchorwoman Mona Vetsch was joking this morning that everything in Flims has to be turned off except for pacemakers. However, there is also an other piece of humor in this story. For those of you who don’t know, Flims is a relatively small tourists place deep in the Swiss Alps. I am really wondering how many additional jammers they are going to find once they are back in Bern.