Journalist appeals e-voting fraud conviction

Can a crime be committed in the public interest? Keystone

A Swiss television journalist is to appeal a conviction for electoral fraud after demonstrating for a news report that it was possible to vote twice electronically on a single issue.

He was able to do this in March 2015 having been mistakenly sent two sets of voting forms following a change of address. He alerted the authorities to the issue, but three weeks later was indicted by Geneva prosecutors

In early November, he was sentenced by a Bern court to a two-day suspended prison sentence and a fine of CHF400 after exposing the e-voting system’s shortcomings. His journalistic research was found by the court to be no defence against the crime.

The man now intends to take his appeal to the Federal Criminal Court, where he will argue that the original verdict violated his freedom of expression and the freedom of the press, he told the Le Matin Dimanche newspaper.

The journalist works for Swiss public television RTS in the French-speaking part of Switzerland. RTS comes under the roof of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, as does swissinfo.ch.