This electronic vote has been open since Friday. The only place where it is authorized, moreover, is on the 11 constituencies of French people living abroad, created in 2008 so that expatriates have representatives in the National Assembly. This singularity often resurfaces in the debates in mainland France on the generalization of electronic voting, promise of Emmanuel Macron in 2017. The course of the ballot which ends this Wednesday will temper the ardor of the fiercest defenders of this Internet voting.
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Because there were serial bugs: voters using a Yahoo email address did not receive the vote confirmation code. So, in short, impossible for them to vote. This problem, identified this weekend, lasted three days, with a double difficulty linked to the agenda: Ascension Thursday in France – a public holiday – and Memorial Day Monday in the United States – also a public holiday, in the largest constituency in number of registered voters.
“So the Quai d’Orsay didn’t do anything all weekend“, were annoyed candidates. This is not entirely true since a technical meeting was called on Monday afternoon, with the IT department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and service providers to identify the source of the problem. Since then everything is working again.
Voting by Internet is not the only way of voting for French people living abroad, who can actually vote by Internet, but also at the ballot box, by proxy, or by correspondence! This is the second specificity of this election.
Third singularity: Internet, it’s over this Wednesday, June 1 at noon. But the physical polling stations only open this weekend, like this Saturday for French Polynesia or the American continent. This Sunday, it will be around offices outside the American continent.
It looks like a gas plant: a vote that is spread over a week, results known this Sunday, June 5… and compressed deadlines to prepare the campaign documents for the second round!
For candidates in North America, for example, posters, professions of faith, ballots must be sent… before Wednesday, June 8th. So developed or even printed this week, even before knowing the results.
Beyond that, it is materially impossible to send these documents to voters in time. There is a risk, in the long run: that the accumulation of practical difficulties will end up diverting them from voting.