PARTICIPATION. The Ministry of the Interior has just communicated the figures for participation at 5 p.m. The participation rate is 65% all stacks, down from the two previous elections.
[Mis à jour le 10 avril 2022 à 17h39] The participation rate at the national level is 65% at 5 p.m. In decline compared to the two previous elections of 2017 and 2012. In 2017 the participation rate at 5 p.m. was 69.42%. In 2012, it was slightly higher with 70.59% participation. The French turned out less at the polls than in the two previous elections. Voters turned out massively in the departments of Dordogne (75.26%) and Aveyron with a turnout of 73.93% at 5 p.m. The Gersois also voted en masse with a turnout of 73.71% at 5 p.m. Concerning Overseas, the Belgian media The Free has already communicated the first trends concerning the ranking of candidates for the 2022 presidential election.
Over the course of the elections, the abstention figures have gradually and constantly increased since 1974, except for the peak in 2002 and therefore the drop in 2007. Out of ten elections by direct universal suffrage, abstention came “in the lead”. three times (1995, 2002, 2017), second twice (1969 and 1988), and third five times (1965, 1974, 1981, 2007 and 2012). And in 2022 then? The level of abstention could be “similar to that observed on April 21, 2002” fears BVA. The participation rate should reach 73.5% tonight on the strokes of 8 p.m. based on Ipsos-Sopra Steria estimates for Le Parisien. In 2017, the participation amounted to 77.77% according to Le Parisien. It seems that voters are less mobilized in 2022. The three departments with the lowest turnout are: Haute-Corse (51.23%), Seine-Saint-Denis (51.71% ) and Paris (52.17%) according to the Ministry of the Interior this Sunday April 10 at 5 p.m.
Ile-de-France is lagging behind in the turnout at 12 p.m., according to the first figures communicated by the Ministry of the Interior. Indeed, a certain cleavage is notable with the departments of the South-West which moved to the polls on this morning of April 10, 2022. The Gers, the Landes or the Pyrénées Atlantiques are seen as “good students”. It should also be noted that the number of voters in the overseas departments is extremely low at midday. The participation rate displayed in Saint-Martin is 12.07% but remains higher than the 2017 election with only 9.57% participation at midday. The participation rate is 17.31% in Guadeloupe and 21.44% in Saint Barthelemy.
The first trends appeared with the release of the first figures for participation at noon, communicated by the Ministry of the Interior. A significant gap is visible between the departments of Ile-de-France where the French shunned the ballot box, unlike some rural departments. Voters mobilized more in Saône-et-Loire with a turnout of 39.05%, in Gers (37.71%) and in Ardèche (35.55%). The department of Seine-Saint-Denis has the lowest participation rate at 12 p.m. with 14.71%. Voters should be more numerous this afternoon, which could compensate for this significant delay in the next official turnout figures published at 5 p.m. In general, turnout has dropped in France compared to the 2017 election (28.54%) compared to 25.48% this year. In 2022, the turnout recorded at noon is the lowest rate posted since the 2002 presidential election.
The Ministry of the Interior has just officially communicated on the level of participation: at noon, the participation rate is 25.48% in France. A low level, but which will obviously increase throughout the day. In 2017, during the previous presidential election, the turnout at noon was 28.54%, which therefore shows interest at half mast at the start of the ballot. According to the OpinionWay-Kéa Partners barometer for “Les Echos” published on Monday April 4, 2022, only 66% of French people said they were sure to vote this Sunday. We were therefore heading towards a considerably low turnout for the first round of a presidential election, which is historically the one that brings together the most voters and mobilizes the most citizens in the polling stations.
According to a study by BVA published on March 21, it is especially the 25-34 who did not intend to move (44% of them). But why are so many French people sulking to go democratic? First reason, according to the polling institute, “they do not expect much from this election” and believe “that it will not change anything in their daily lives.” Second reason, specific to the 2022 ballot given the polls, “the impression that the betting is already done”, Emmanuel Macron being given a clear lead in the first round and winning in all cases in the second. Finally, “the impression that their vote does not count” discourages some voters from moving, when a certain section declares “that no candidate represents [leurs] ideas.”
Next numbers at 5 p.m.
As with every election, the services of Place Beauvau, which is in charge of the organization and the proper conduct of the ballot, gives updated rates of participation and abstention at 5 p.m. and then at 8 p.m. Later in the night, the level of participation is consolidated with final figures, once all the data from the polling stations has been tallied. Participation is one of the important data of this presidential election and this first round. Voter turnout is the percentage of voters who chose to vote rather than abstain. To perform this calculation, the Ministry of the Interior uses the base of voters registered on the electoral lists and compares it to the votes cast.
After the participation and abstention rates, it is the estimates of the results that will be communicated, from 8 p.m., on Linternaute as well as on all the major national media. The ministry also provides us with updated abstention figures and the results of each candidate throughout the evening. The editorial staff of Linternaute is mobilizing so that you are aware of the partial and consolidated results of this 2022 presidential election in real time, thanks to our major live broadcast dedicated to the 2022 presidential election.
Remember that the participation in the vote, in France, whatever its level, cannot allow the official calling into question of an election. But it decreases over the years, and this is nothing new. This Sunday, the fear of a particularly low turnout, and therefore of record abstention, hangs over this first round of the presidential election. According to certain polling institutes, approximately one in three eligible voters does not intend to move to slip a ballot into the ballot box on Sunday April 10, 2022, even if it is white: all those people who do not will not move will therefore reduce the participation rate. This rate therefore promises to be even lower than that of the first round of the 2017 election, where it was 77.77% in the first round and 74.56% in the second, but which is approaching (or even could beat) of the record for the first round of 2002, where 11,689,956 voters had not taken part in the ballot, causing the participation rate to plummet to 71.60%. He thus lost 6.8% compared to the previous election of 1995, where the participation score was 78.38% in the first round. More recently, for the regional elections of June 2021, the final participation rate in the second round was 34.69%, which is extremely low (note however that the participation in the regional and departmental elections is always lower than the participation in the presidential election).