swiss-democracy-mcp

Part of the Swiss Public Data MCP Portfolio — connecting AI models to Swiss institutional data sources.

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

Tools

Phase 1 — Swissvotes (No Auth Required)

Phase 2 — BFS Real-Time (No Auth Required)

Phase 3 — SRGSSR Polis (API Key Required)

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):

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:

• zurich-opendata-mcp — add Zurich city-level statistics to vote analysis

• swiss-statistics-mcp — enrich with BFS demographic data by canton

• srgssr-mcp — link SRF news archive content to specific vote dates

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.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

Data licenses:

• Swissvotes: Creative Commons BY 4.0

• BFS / opendata.swiss: Open use

• SRGSSR Polis: Non-commercial use only — see developer.srgssr.ch