LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS 2022. Will the white vote still appeal to many voters this Sunday, June 12 for the first round of the 2022 legislative elections? Is the blank vote counted in the results? Here are the first answers for this election day.
[Mis à jour le 12 juin 2022 à 17h04] We vote this Sunday, June 12 for the legislative elections! Polling stations opened at 8 a.m. everywhere in France for the first round of legislative elections. And while many candidates will be feverishly awaiting the results this Sunday evening, the blank vote could also be one of the big “winners” of the first round of the 2022 legislative elections. For several years and ballot after ballot, the progression of the blank vote has been evident. in France. Now registered in the register and therefore present in the results provided by the Ministry of the Interior, blank votes are growing rapidly.
The last “scores” of blank votes
On 24th April last, during the second round of the presidential election, 2,228,044 voted blank, which nevertheless represented 4.57% of those registered on the electoral lists and more than 6% of voters who voted moved to polling stations. In 2017, during the last legislative elections, 357,018 voters did the same in the first round, i.e. 1.54% of voters, a figure which jumped in the second round with nearly 1.4 million blank votes, i.e. 6.93% voters! Please note that a vote must meet many criteria to be classified as such.
In 2017, there were many blank and invalid votes in the legislative elections which followed Emmanuel Macron’s first election as President of the Republic by a few weeks. The blank and invalid votes as counted then had represented 2% of the ballots cast in the ballot box in the first round but nearly 10% in the second round two weeks later, representing 9.87% of the votes, going from 513,000 to nearly 2 million in the second round. All while abstention had also skyrocketed between the two rounds.
Towards a reform to take into account the blank vote?
For many years, the question of the counting of blank votes in the election results has been a frequent theme on the eve of elections. It still has not found a clear answer, but a step has been taken in 2021. If neither the government nor the French institutions have seriously considered the question, the abstention rate, which continues to increase with each ballot calls into question the legitimacy of elected politicians. A February 2021 bill notes that through abstention “the people mean they no longer have the voice to revolt democratically, nor the power sufficient to fundamentally change the course of our history.”
This is a first step but France is still far from the effective recognition of the blank vote. The bill presented in 2021, however, considered the recognition of the blank vote as “urgent and imperative”. The law of February 21, 2014 by proposing in its article 1 that the blank votes “enter into account for the determination of the votes cast during the first and second round”. The February 2021 bill goes further and suggests that new electoral rules be instituted “in the event of not obtaining an absolute majority”. However, the bill was not adopted and is still at the proposal stage.
Please note that the counting of blank votes does not mean that they are really taken into account in the results of the French polls, whether in the presidential or the legislative elections. The law of February 21, 2014 was only a first step towards the recognition of the blank vote and since then the project has been at a standstill. According to the text, the current “recognition” of the blank vote simply implies that “blank ballots are counted separately and attached to the minutes.” They are “specially mentioned in the results of the polls” but they do not appear among the votes cast. The taking into account of the blank vote is in reality only a facade because if it is presented as a recognized political choice, the blank vote therefore has no weight on the outcome of the ballot.
Is the hope of a reform to take into account the blank vote still allowed? Remember, shortly after the Yellow Vests crisis, Emmanuel Macron opened the door, integrating the subject into the great national debate. Neither the actual counting of the white vote nor the famous RIC, the citizens’ initiative referendum, was finally retained at the end of the debates, on the contrary of a significant proportional share in the legislative elections or the drop in the number of parliamentarians. 577 deputies will be elected at the end of the second round of these legislative elections, as in 2017, meaning that a movement must win 289 seats to obtain an absolute majority in the National Assembly.
What are the differences between abstention, blank vote and null vote?
The blank vote is strictly understood as a blank ballot free of any mention whatsoever or an envelope inside which no ballot has been slipped. These two options are the only ones that allow a blank vote to be considered and counted during the count. Several pitfalls must therefore be avoided: put several ballots in the envelope, put a scribbled or torn ballot or even a document that is not an official ballot. Such ballots are simply recognized as spoiled votes and may imply an error on the part of the voter.
Unlike the nominative ballots of each candidate, the blank ballots are not officially provided by the polling stations. Thus, voters who wish to use them must bring them with them. Article 1 of the 2014 law provides that “an envelope containing no ballot is assimilated to a blank ballot.” Furthermore, Article L.49 of the Electoral Code stipulates that “the distribution of blank ballots by individuals is prohibited on polling day.”
Abstention corresponds to the fact of not going to the polls. Conversely, the white vote consists of going to the polling station but slipping a blank ballot without any name or placing an empty envelope in the ballot box. This gesture is seen as the demonstration of an interest in the political life of the country or the realization of its citizen act, but makes it possible to mark its dissatisfaction vis-à-vis the political offer, which did not convince. Finally, the null vote brings together the torn or annotated ballot papers.
It should be kept in mind that the blank vote is a political choice unlike the invalid vote and abstention which can reflect the inability to go to the polls or be a political act which can mean the rejection of an election more than that of the candidates. Among these three behaviors, only the blank vote is recognized, and this since the law of February 21, 2014, but be careful because if they are correctly counted during the counting, the blank votes are not taken into account in the votes cast and therefore in the election result. They therefore have no real impact on the final result and do not influence the validity or otherwise of the ballot or the proclamation of the results and even less on the election of the deputy in your constituency.