This hardly changes anything in the result of the presidential election but it will undoubtedly offend the voters who had taken the trouble to vote: 10,216 votes in the first round were canceled by the Constitutional Council, guaranteeing the smooth running of the ballot.
“Since Monday, the Council has examined all the census reports transmitted by the State services and has taken note of the reports of our 2,000 delegates. We proceeded to the adjustment of certain results and the rectification of material errors and we examined the protests and the complaints which were addressed to us ”, explained its president Laurent Fabius Wednesday, announcing the official results of the election.
“In the polling stations where substantial irregularities had occurred, which were in fact few in number, we canceled the votes cast: a total of 10,216 votes were cancelled.” The Official Journal published Thursday morning the reasons for these cancellations and some are surprising to say the least…
In Léchal, we vote… at the mayor’s home
First, there is the mayor of Léchelle, a village of 54 inhabitants in the Pas-de-Calais, who, in defiance of article R. 40 of the electoral code, “took the initiative to organize the operations of vote at home, ”explains the Official Journal. “In addition, the places were not subject to any signage and had no voting booth, and this situation persisted despite the observations of the delegated magistrate”. Result: the 30 votes were cancelled.
In Dénipaire, in the Vosges, 162 votes will not count because “the delegate magistrate of the Constitutional Council was aggressively prevented from exercising his mission of control by the president of the polling station”.
In Isère, the commune of Lieudieu closed its polling station at 6 p.m., while, for this election, the vote was to be able to take place until 7 p.m., reports The Dauphine. “This irregularity being likely to prevent voters from exercising their right to vote, it is necessary to cancel” the 192 votes, considers the Constitutional Council.
One polling station for two voters
Even more inexplicable: in Chenevelles, in Vienne, when there was to be only one polling station, the town created a second office “on the list of which two voters were registered”. The story does not say who the two unlucky voters are, but their votes will not be counted…
Sometimes, the scale of the cancellations is more substantial: thus, in polling station no. Constitutional Council, “such an irregularity being likely to lead to errors and to encourage fraud”. In Toulouse, the cancellation concerns the 1479 votes from polling station No. 130 where “significant and unexplained discrepancies” were noted between the results report and the counting sheets.
0.02% cancellations
In total, the votes of the offices of 22 municipalities were thus discarded, most of the time for minor irregularities: unsealed ballot box, signature of the attendance list before voting, minutes not transmitted… No reason, in the end, putting the first round of the election in question: the number of canceled votes represents 0.02% of the number of voters (nearly 36 million).