Federal Act
on Political Rights
(PRA)¹

¹ After ex­piry of the ref­er­en­dum peri­od, the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall es­tab­lish wheth­er the re­quest for the ref­er­en­dum has been sub­mit­ted by the re­quired num­ber of can­tons.¹²⁹

² A re­quest for a ref­er­en­dum is de­clared in­val­id if:

a.

it has not been de­cided on and sub­mit­ted to the Fed­er­al Chan­cellery with­in the ref­er­en­dum peri­od;

b.

it has been de­cided on by a pub­lic body that is not com­pet­ent to do so;

c.

it is im­possible to identi­fy with any cer­tainty the fed­er­al en­act­ment in re­spect of which the pop­u­lar vote is be­ing re­ques­ted.

³ The Fed­er­al Chan­cellery shall provide writ­ten no­ti­fic­a­tion of the rul­ing on the suc­cess or fail­ure of the re­quest for a ref­er­en­dum by the can­tons to the gov­ern­ments of all those can­tons that have re­ques­ted the ref­er­en­dum, and shall pub­lish the rul­ing in the Fed­er­al Gaz­ette, giv­ing de­tails of the num­ber of val­id and in­val­id can­ton­al re­quests for a ref­er­en­dum.