With each election, suspicions of electoral fraud resurface. The April 24 presidential election was no exception. On social networks, these three false information have fueled doubts.
1The results are announced before the end of the counting of votes? It’s normal
On TikTok, users were moved that the announcement of the results precedes the end of the count. This is the case with every election. In reality, the first results announced are based on estimates made by polling institutes. The pollsters send investigators to count the first ballots counted in several targeted polling stations. Then the estimates are refined during the evening.
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The result which appeared at 8 p.m. on Sunday evening was calculated on this basis. The difference between this and the final result given by the Ministry of the Interior on the night of Sunday to Monday is quite small.
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2 A million votes stolen from Marine Le Pen live on France 2? A computer error
Several screenshots of the live from France 2 circulated on Twitter and TikTok. According to these images, the candidate of the National Rally would have reached more than 14 million votes during the evening. While according to the final results, she finally collected just over 13 million. In response, several Internet users cried fraud, explaining that a million votes were stolen from Marine Le Pen.
@France2tv why is the replay of this passage not available? We want explanations! pic.twitter.com/tUAVvfoLJE
— Pam Ela (@pam_lna) April 25, 2022
We contacted France 2 who explained that it was a “computer error” which was quickly rectified. Software supposed to show live voting figures counted some towns twice, artificially inflating candidates’ scores. The television channel apologized to viewers.
Erratum: a computer error led us to display erroneous figures during the election evening of France 2, Sunday April 24. We apologize to our viewers. Here are some explanations ⤵️
– Info France 2 (@infofrance2) April 25, 2022
3By adding the scores of the two candidates for the blank votes and the invalid votes, we obtain more than 100% of the votes
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This screenshot was widely relayed on Twitter. It’s a classic mistake. In fact, two things must be distinguished. On the one hand, the electorate is all French people registered on the electoral lists: 48 million people in total. This figure includes abstainers, blank votes and invalid votes. Taking into account the entire electorate in the calculation of the results of the candidates, Emmanuel Macron would achieve a score of 38.52% and Marine Le Pen 28.27%.
On the other hand there are the votes cast, these are those who voted for one of the candidates. This does not include abstention, blank and spoiled votes. The government uses this figure to calculate the candidates’ score. In the second round, 13.65 million people did not vote, 2.2 million slipped a blank ballot and more than 790,000 a void ballot. Subtracting these numbers, 32 million people are part of the “cast” votes.