Published
Video length: 3 min
This Parisian bar predicts (almost) all American presidents
This year is the 100th anniversary of the “straw vote” at Harry’s Bar in Paris. A fake vote to elect the President of the United States but which, in a century, was wrong only three times.
(FRANCEINFO / THOMAS SELLIN)
This year is the 100th anniversary of the “straw vote” at Harry’s Bar in Paris. A fake vote to elect the President of the United States, but which, in a century, has only been wrong three times.
You enter Harry’s Bar like a saloon, by pushing open two mahogany swing doors. All the woodwork comes from a bar in New York, dismantled in 1911, just before Prohibition. The urn for the “straw vote” is visible from the entrance, opposite the bar, the same one where the Bloody Mary was invented 100 years ago.
It’s Harry MacElhone, the founder of the bar, who created this event. “My great-grandfather rode on a frustration that Americans had 100 years ago”explain Franz-Arthur MacElhone who took over the family business. “You couldn’t, when you were American, vote by proxy. He wanted to transform it into a party where Americans would come to vote at Harry’s Bar which was, at the time, their favorite place. So he started this fake election.”
:quality(50)/2024/10/09/photo-2-670686f622e69249398024.jpg)
In 100 years of predictions, the bar has only been wrong for three elections: those of 1976, 2004 and 2016. “Three times in 100 years is still quite honorable”continues Franz-Arthur MacElhone. “There were even, in the 70s, people who called from the White House asking who Harry’s Bar had elected. Every election, we have a lot of media who come. The street is closed, we have 1,000 people outside, 200 people inside, cameras, journalists…” The media were also present on October 7 for the launch of the 100th anniversary of the “straw vote”.
:quality(50)/2024/10/09/photo-1-6706864920169507934536.jpg)
The bar wanted to mark the occasion with a prestigious guest. It was the most French-speaking American writer, Douglas Kennedy, who kicked off the vote by casting the first ballot of this edition. And even fictitiously, voting during this period is a very important symbol for him: “My daughter, who is 28, fears that her peers will not vote this year. And that could change everything because the election is very close, it could come down to 40,000 votes. Democracy is threatened by many things. The fact that we can continue to vote is essential and we have forgotten it. Voting is not just a right, it is a duty.”
See you next November 5, when the results of the American presidential election are announced, to find out if Harry’s Bar is still as reliable, or even more reliable, than the biggest polling institutes.