Swiss Democracy MCP Server

🗳️ 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.

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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 →

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Data Sources

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Tools

Phase 1 — Swissvotes (No Auth Required)

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

Phase 3 — SRGSSR Polis (API Key Required)

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

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Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md (🇩🇪 Deutsch).

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Security

See SECURITY.md (🇩🇪 Deutsch) for the security posture and vulnerability reporting.

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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