🗳️ swiss-democracy-mcp
🇨🇭 Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio — connecting AI models to Swiss institutional data sources.
🌐 English | 🇩🇪 Deutsche Version
An MCP server providing access to Swiss direct democracy data, covering all federal popular votes since 1848 and elections since 1900.
Demo Query
«Wie hat der Kanton Zürich bei der AHV 21 Initiative 2022 abgestimmt,
und welche Parteien unterstützten die Vorlage?»
→ democracy_search_votes(keyword="AHV 21", year_from=2022)
→ democracy_get_cantonal_results(vote_number="551")
→ democracy_get_party_positions(vote_number="551")
→ More use cases by audience →
Data Sources
| Source | Coverage | Auth |
|---|
| Swissvotes (Uni Bern) | All federal votes since 1848 · 874 columns · party positions · cantonal results | None ✓ |
| BFS / opendata.swiss | Real-time & archive (since 1981) · municipality level | None ✓ |
| SRGSSR Polis | Votes & elections since 1900 · municipality detail | OAuth2 key |
Tools
Phase 1 — Swissvotes (No Auth Required)
| Tool | Description |
|---|
democracy_search_votes | Search all federal popular votes since 1848 by keyword, date range, legal form, outcome, policy domain |
democracy_get_vote_detail | Full details for a specific vote: official title, parliamentary positions, national result, signatures |
democracy_get_party_positions | Party recommendations (FDP, SP, SVP, Die Mitte, GPS, GLP, …) with campaign finance data |
democracy_get_cantonal_results | Results for all 26 cantons: yes%, turnout, accepted flag |
democracy_list_vote_dates | List all voting dates with number of proposals per date |
Phase 2 — BFS Real-Time (No Auth Required)
| Tool | Description |
|---|
democracy_bfs_list_vote_dates | List all BFS voting dates (archive + current) |
democracy_bfs_get_vote_results | Real-time or archived results at national, cantonal, or municipality level |
Phase 3 — SRGSSR Polis (API Key Required)
| Tool | Description |
|---|
democracy_polis_list_votations | Historical votations since 1900 with municipality-level data |
democracy_polis_get_votation_detail | Full Polis detail, optionally with all municipality results |
democracy_polis_list_elections | National Council, Council of States, and cantonal elections since 1900 |
Installation
Claude Desktop (stdio)
Add to claude_desktop_config.json:
{
"mcpServers": {
"swiss-democracy": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": ["swiss-democracy-mcp"],
"env": {
"SRGSSR_CONSUMER_KEY": "your_key_here",
"SRGSSR_CONSUMER_SECRET": "your_secret_here"
}
}
}
}
The SRGSSR_* variables are optional. Without them, all Swissvotes and BFS tools remain fully functional. Only the Polis tools require credentials.
Cloud / Render.com (Streamable HTTP)
pip install swiss-democracy-mcp
# Bind to all interfaces ONLY inside a container/cloud environment:
MCP_TRANSPORT=streamable_http MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 MCP_PORT=8000 python -m swiss_democracy_mcp.server
MCP_HOST defaults to 127.0.0.1 (loopback). Set MCP_HOST=0.0.0.0 only
inside a sandboxed container/cloud deployment — never on a local machine, where
it would expose the server to your whole network.
Architecture
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Claude / LLM Host │
└──────────────┬──────────────────────────────┘
│ MCP (stdio / Streamable HTTP)
┌──────────────▼──────────────────────────────┐
│ swiss-democracy-mcp │
│ │
│ ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │ Swissvotes CSV Cache (24h TTL) │ │
│ │ All 874 columns, since 1848 │ │
│ └──────────────┬──────────────────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ┌──────────────▼──────────────────────┐ │
│ │ BFS / opendata.swiss (no auth) │ │
│ │ Real-time & archive since 1981 │ │
│ └──────────────┬──────────────────────┘ │
│ │ │
│ ┌──────────────▼──────────────────────┐ │
│ │ SRGSSR Polis (OAuth2, optional) │ │
│ │ Votes & elections since 1900 │ │
│ └─────────────────────────────────────┘ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Transport: stdio for Claude Desktop · Streamable HTTP for cloud/Render.com
Auth pattern: No-Auth-First — Swissvotes & BFS work without any credentials
Cache: Swissvotes CSV is loaded once at startup and cached for 24 hours
Configuration
All configuration is via environment variables (see .env.example):
| Variable | Default | Purpose |
|---|
MCP_TRANSPORT | stdio | stdio (local) or streamable_http (cloud) |
MCP_HOST | 127.0.0.1 | HTTP bind address — set 0.0.0.0 only in a container |
MCP_PORT | 8000 | HTTP port |
LOG_LEVEL | INFO | structured JSON logs go to stderr |
SRGSSR_CONSUMER_KEY / SRGSSR_CONSUMER_SECRET | — | optional, only for democracy_polis_* tools |
Secrets are held as SecretStr and never logged. See
docs/secret-management.md and
docs/security.md.
MCP Primitives
This server intentionally exposes Tools only (no Resources or Prompts). It is
a Phase-1 read-only data wrapper (see docs/roadmap.md); the
tool surface is small (10 use-case-oriented tools) and every response is
self-contained with source provenance. Resources (e.g. vote://{anr}) are a
candidate for a later phase once the URI scheme stabilises.
MCP Protocol Version
The protocol version is the one negotiated by mcp[cli]>=1.6.0 (FastMCP). SDK
updates are tracked monthly via Dependabot; protocol bumps are recorded in
CHANGELOG.md.
Portfolio Synergy
Combine with other servers in the Swiss Public Data MCP portfolio:
Example multi-server query:
«Vergleiche die Abstimmungsresultate zur AHV-Reform mit der Altersstruktur der Kantone»
→ swiss-democracy-mcp + swiss-statistics-mcp
Safety & Limits
- Read-only: All tools perform HTTP GET requests only — no data is written, modified, or deleted upstream.
- Egress allow-list (SSRF protection): Outbound requests are restricted to a fixed allow-list of trusted hosts (
swissvotes.ch, opendata.swiss, *.bfs.admin.ch, api.srgssr.ch), HTTPS only. Caller-supplied URLs (the BFS result_url) are additionally resolved and rejected if they point at private, loopback or cloud-metadata IP ranges.
- No personal data: Swissvotes, BFS and SRGSSR Polis expose aggregate democratic data (vote results, party positions, cantonal/municipality tallies). No personally identifiable information (PII) is processed or stored by this server.
- Rate limits: Swissvotes is a single CSV downloaded once per 24h and cached in memory. BFS / opendata.swiss and SRGSSR Polis are public APIs without documented rate limits — keep
limit and date ranges conservative. The server enforces a 30s timeout per request.
- Data freshness: Real-time BFS results reflect the upstream feed at query time (no local caching). Swissvotes is refreshed every 24h from the Uni Bern mirror.
- Terms of service: Data is subject to the ToS of each source — swissvotes.ch (CC BY 4.0, Uni Bern), opendata.swiss (mostly CC-BY / Open by Default), SRGSSR Polis (free tier, non-commercial use only). Always cite the upstream source in downstream products.
- No guarantees: This server is a community project, not affiliated with the University of Bern, the Federal Statistical Office, or SRG SSR. Availability depends on upstream APIs.
Known Limitations
- Swissvotes coverage: Cantonal-level results are available since 1848; municipality-level results only via SRGSSR Polis (since ~1990s depending on the vote).
- BFS archive: Real-time service covers federal votes since 1981 only.
- Polis tools: Require free registration at developer.srgssr.ch. Non-commercial use only.
- CSV cache: The Swissvotes dataset is ~several MB and is cached in memory for 24 hours. Memory footprint is accordingly higher than API-only servers.
Testing
# Unit tests (no network required)
PYTHONPATH=src pytest tests/ -m "not live" -v
# Live tests (require network access)
PYTHONPATH=src pytest tests/ -m "live" -v
Contributing
See CONTRIBUTING.md (🇩🇪 Deutsch).
Security
See SECURITY.md (🇩🇪 Deutsch) for the security posture and vulnerability reporting.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
Data licenses:
Installation
Run via uv's uvx — no clone or manual install needed. Add to your MCP client config (mcpServers for Claude Desktop, Cursor and Windsurf; use a top-level servers key for VS Code in .vscode/mcp.json):
{
"mcpServers": {
"swiss-democracy-mcp": {
"command": "uvx",
"args": [
"swiss-democracy-mcp"
]
}
}
}
