This Sunday, April 24, the French go to the polls to elect their future president. During this voting period, it may be useful to remember a few definitions: abstention, vote cast… We take stock.
France votes this Sunday! Of course, we should not expect a very large mobilization on April 24. It is indeed unlikely that the French will all mobilize for this second round of the presidential election, when we know that the abstention rate was 26.31% for the first round which takes place on April 10. The polls of this between-two rounds have not been in the direction of an increase in the participation. Certainly. But all the same: this Sunday, the French are choosing their future head of state, the most important choice for political life in the coming years. This election is therefore crucial. To fully understand the estimates, issues and results of this election -which will of course be found on Linternaute.com as soon as it is officially promulgated-, it is useful to review the definitions of the terms used. A little lexical tour.
While only 1 in 3 French people took part in the departmental and regional elections of June 2021, many studies try to understand and determine the reasons for abstention in the elections. On this Sunday April 10 of the first round of the 2022 presidential election, it is interesting to look at the parliamentary fact-finding mission on the reasons for abstention which gave rise to a report published on December 15, 2021. Among others reasons, he reports an increase in the abstention gap between towns and villages, which rose from 2% in 1995 to 12% in 2014 and 17% in 2021, but also a combination of electoral protest and lack of interest on the part of the French (in particular Jérémie Peltier’s note of March 4, 2021: “France who doesn’t care”). Finally, the report explains that the failures of the political system have been accentuated by the health crisis. Mention should also be made of the Odoxa report for Franceinfo, Le Figaro and Backbone Consulting on abstention in the regional and departmental elections last year, which explains that abstention is explained both by massive distrust of politics (50%) and by an order of priorities upset by the health crisis (41%), making citizens “unavailable” for the ballot.
What abstention rate to expect for this second round?
The record abstention rate of the first round of the election on April 10 reveals a well-known problem: the abstention of French voters in elections has been rising steadily for ten years. Whether through partisan demobilization, lack of interest, ignorance or defiance, one thing is certain: the ballot boxes are unlikely to be filled this Sunday, April 24. A trend that seems to confirm the survey of February 11, carried out by Ipsos-Sopra Steria, in partnership with the Political Research Center of Sciences Po (Cevipof) and the Jean Jaurès Foundation for Le Monde. It revealed that the French are even less interested in this campaign than in those of previous elections: in fact 71% of respondents say they are “interested” in this year’s election, compared to 81% in 2017 and 80% in 2012. Even finding with the Harris-Interactive poll of February 23, which reveals that 68% of French people questioned will vote in the first round, which would represent a considerable drop, the lowest participation rate being 71.60% in 2002. If a campaign has been launched since February 25 to fight against abstention, in particular among young people with influencers like Quentin Deronzier and his 100,000 subscribers on Instagram who broadcast messages encouraging people to go to the polls, the latest polls do not show renewed interest. On the contrary, the daily OpinionWay-Kéa Partners barometer for “Les Echos” published on Monday April 4 reported a participation of only 66%.
What were turnouts in previous elections?
Abstention in French elections, whatever they may be, has been increasing for several years, which means that, conversely, the participation rate is decreasing. In the regional elections of June 2021, the final participation rate in the second round was 34.69%, compared to 58.41% in 2015 and 51.21% in 2010. The figures were even worse for the departmental elections which took place the same month since the participation rate had fallen to 34.36%, against 49.9% in 2015. If the European elections of 2019 were a surprise with a higher participation than in 2014, (50.66% in 2019, representing an increase of 8.06 points compared to 2014), the previous presidential elections clearly reflect the downward trend in the number of voters going to the polls: in fact, the final figure for participation in the 1st round was 77.77% in 2017 compared to 79.48% in 2012, which represents a difference of 1.71 points.
L’abstention should not be confused with blank or invalid votes. The abstention rate represents the proportion of citizens registered on the electoral lists who did not go to the polling stations (and who did not make a proxy). If, during an election, the abstention rate is 50%, this means that 5 voters out of 10 did not take care to vote. Who are the abstainers? Absent citizens who have not had time to make a power of attorney, people who are not interested in politics or who refuse to support the political system, undecided people who, for lack of knowing who to vote for, do not move. .. As a reminder, during the first round of the 2017 presidential election, there were 10,577,572, or 22.23% of registered voters, during the second round, they rose to 12,101,366, or 25.44% of registered voters. More recently, during the regional elections in June 2021 for example, the final abstention rate in the second round was 65.31%, while it was only 41.59% in 2015. And what about there abstention during this first round? With 26% of registered voters, or 12.8 million people who abstained, we almost beat the 2002 record, when it was 28%. But apart from this special year when abstention brought Jean-Marie Le Pen to the second round, the figures for this first round of April 10 are very high in comparison with all the other presidential elections. It remains to be seen whether the French will mobilize more for this second round.
The abstention figure is the exact opposite of that of the participation. If 3 voters out of 10 deserted the ballot box, this means that 7 out of 10 participated in the ballot. Turnout therefore amounts to 70% in this case and represents the ratio of the number of voters to the total number of registered voters on the electoral lists. During the first round of the 2017 presidential election, 37,003,546 voters went to the polls, i.e. 77.77% of registered voters. During the second round, they were 35,467,327 voters, or 74.56% of those registered. More recently, in the regional elections of June 2021, it was 36.49%, which represents a drop compared to the previous regional ones, with 58.41% of registered voters who voted in 2015 and 51.21% in 2010. And, even more recently, in the first round of the presidential election, the turnout was 73.69%.
The blank vote consists of going to the voting booth and not slipping any ballot into the envelope. The voter who votes blank places his empty envelope in the ballot box, signs the register, but his vote is not counted in the results. He went to his polling station and therefore does not contribute to the abstention figures, but his civic action counts for nothing. The white vote is also to be distinguished since the European elections of 2014 from the invalid vote since now, the blank vote is counted. There were 659,302 blank votes for the first round of the 2017 presidential election, i.e. 1.78% of voters, then 3,021,499 in the second, i.e. 6.35%. Today, half of the candidates (6/12) who competed in the 2022 presidential election are in favor of recognizing the blank vote in the elections. If there are only two left for this second round, the positioning of the ex-candidates is interesting and has influenced their voting instructions for the second round. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, for example, organized an online consultation leaving his voters the choice of the blank vote, while Jean Lassalle preferred not to give any voting instructions, he who assured that he would vote blank and who is actively campaigning for his recognition.
This corresponds to a vote marred by an irregularity: two ballots slipped into the envelope, a crossed out or torn ballot, a ballot in the name of a candidate who does not present himself… The invalid vote does not enter either in the calculation of the results, unlike the blank vote. According to the electoral law, it is not a “cast vote”. For the first round of the 2017 presidential election, the number of invalid votes was 285,431. It exceeded one million in the second round. And for the first round of the 2022 presidential election? Less than 1% of voters (0.78%) cast an invalid vote, which corresponds to 289,337, a slight increase compared to the first round of 2017.
The vote cast corresponds to a vote which can be duly recorded because it is not blank and not zero. It is often replaced in the comments by the word “voice”. The number of votes cast (or number of votes) is what determines the outcome of an election. During the first round of the 2017 presidential election, there were 36,058,813 votes cast. In the second round, they were 31,381,603. More recently, during the French regional elections of June 20 and 27, 2021, there were 14,680,885 votes cast in the 1st round (which represents a drop of 16.6 points compared to the regional of 2015), and 15,932,659 in the second round (a drop of 23.7 points compared to 2015). More recently, in the first round of the 2022 election, the number of votes cast was 35,312,947, again slightly down from the first round of 2017.
the number of registered represents the total number of voters registered on the electoral lists. For the 2021 regional elections, more than 47.5 million people were registered on the electoral lists throughout France. And, for this 2022 presidential election, 48.7 million French people were registered on the electoral lists at the end of March, which means that 95% of French people of voting age are on the list.