While the blank vote remains an option for French voters, it concerned less than 2% of voters in the last European elections. What will be the share of blank votes for this first round of the 2024 Legislative elections? Answer this Sunday.
In France, blank voting is possible for legislative elections. But be careful, counting blank votes does not mean that they will actually be taken into account in the result of the election. The blank vote is equivalent to an empty envelope or a blank ballot. These ballots are considered “votes not cast but counted separately”. By voting blank, a voter expresses his desire to participate in the democratic debate and the 2024 legislative elections, but without identifying himself with the candidates who are running. Which is fundamentally different from an invalid ballot, more akin to an error on the ballot, such as a false name, or a drawing for example, in place of the candidate’s name. In fact, the blank ballot has no weight on the outcome of the election. This blank ballot was tested for the first time during the 2014 European elections.
In accordance with the text, the current “recognition” of the blank vote simply implies that “the blank ballots are counted separately and annexed to the report.” They are made “special mention in the results of the ballots” but they do not appear among the votes cast. Unlike the nominal ballots for each candidate, blank ballots are not officially provided by the polling stations. Therefore, 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 considered to be a blank ballot.” Furthermore, article L.49 of the Electoral Code stipulates that “the distribution of blank ballots by individuals is prohibited on election day.”
Is it planned to take blank votes into account?
The question of counting blank votes regularly comes up in political issues as the elections approach. After many years of discussions without results, a step was taken in 2021. If neither the government nor French institutions have seriously looked into the issue, the abstention rate which continues to increase with each election calls into question causes the legitimacy of elected political figures. A February 2021 bill notes that through abstention “the people mean that they no longer have either the voice to revolt democratically, nor the sufficient power to fundamentally change the course of our history.”
This is a first step, but France is still far from effectively recognising the blank vote. The bill presented in 2021, however, considered the recognition of the blank vote to be “urgent and imperative”. While the law of 21 February 2014 provides in its Article 1 that blank votes “are taken into account in determining the votes cast in the first and second rounds”, the bill of February 2021 goes further and suggests that new electoral rules be introduced “in the event of failure to obtain an absolute majority”. However, the bill has not been adopted and is still at the proposal stage.
What are the latest blank vote scores in the French elections?
In 2019, during the European elections, 555,033 blank votes were counted. Which still represented 4.57% of voters. During the second round of the presidential election, in 2022, 2,228,044 voted blank, or more than 6% of voters who went to the polling stations. During the last European elections in 2024, blank votes represented 1.36% of voters, or 346,240 blank votes.