Friday, June 9 is a stage of the senatorial elections next September. The great electors will be designated. A complex electoral system, denounced in particular in Paris.
Let us recall a few fundamentals: there are 348 senators, elected for six years. The Senate is renewed by half every three years by indirect universal suffrage. “Indirect”, this means that the senators are elected by electors, they are 160,000 throughout France.
Among these great voters, there are regional and departmental councillors, senators, deputies, municipal elected officials… as well as municipal delegates, who will therefore be appointed today. Except for Paris where the system is still a little different.
In the capital, in addition to the regional, departmental and other deputies, there are 163 councilors from Paris. And each councilor of Paris can himself choose 17 delegates or electors whom he places on lists. 163 x 17: this therefore makes a little less than 2,800 people chosen by Parisian elected officials to support their candidates for the Senate.
The great voters in Paris, “an unhealthy ballot”
Among these 2,800 electors, who are not political, we find everything. It is at the discretion of elected officials and this method is decried for its suspicion of cronyism. As one Parisian borough mayor explained: “We take friends, members of associations we know, people we trust…” To ensure that their electors apply their voting instructions, some Parisian elected officials draw on their personal network, their families, or turn to someone whose teenager they took on a 3-year internship.e…
Ultimately, these great voters thus have no link with political life and no real legitimacy to appreciate the work of the candidates for the Senate. So they often vote what they are asked to vote. “It’s an unhealthy and clientelist vote”deplores a councilor from Paris.
This way of naming the great electors seems quite far from the democratic aspirations of the moment. The principle of electors is not necessarily to be called into question. The Senate is the territorial assembly. The senators are linked to the mayors. They bring up issues on the ground, whether they are elected by other elected officials is not a subject.
Why not a drawing of lots for the electors?
On the other hand, that the great electors are ordinary citizens chosen by the local elected officials, that questions. Maybe we should think about other formulas? Beyond the elected officials, who would always be electors, a draw for the rest of the electoral college would, for example, make it possible to avoid apothecary calculations and suspicions of clientelism.
The senatorial elections take place on September 24. On this occasion, half of the Senate will be renewed.