among young voters, many “badly registered”

Until now, the deadline for registering on the electoral roll was set at December 31 for the polls the following year. But for the next presidential election, voters have until the beginning of March 2022 (March 2 online, March 4 in town hall). Additional deadlines had already been granted for the last municipal, departmental and regional elections. But this flexibility enshrined in law comes into force for the first time for a presidential election.

In France, there are some eight million so-called “mis-registered” voters on the lists: most often in a polling station far from home. One in three young people (aged 18 to 34) is affected by this “mis-registration” which generates abstention. So with his friends it’s time for good resolutions for Lou. This young Parisian student is going to change his polling station because he is officially still registered in Reims: “I still have not changed my place of voting. I have already missed the regional ones, it was too late to change. I was incorrectly registered, I went to vote in the first round, but I did not have the I was forced to travel for the second round. I had even missed the municipal elections because of that. So if I think about it, I’ll register for Versailles. ”

“We want to have a role, a voice, to be heard.”

Shayan, Parisian student

to franceinfo

Registered in the capital, Alexandre now lives in L’Haÿ-les-Roses, in the Val-de-Marne. For him no question of changing anything: “Lazy. We don’t vote often enough anyway for me to find it necessary to register in a closer place. I don’t see any point. If I vote, I will vote blank.” For Naoëlle, in case of bad registration, no bad excuses, because there is always a solution: “The proxy works well. My father lives in Portugal and I have always voted for him by proxy and it is done very well.”

“Among the ‘under-registered’ abstention rates are notably higher than among the ‘well-registered’.”

Eric Agrikoliansky, professor of political science

to franceinfo

The problem of “badly registered” is known, but the candidates and the government speak too little about it, explains Eric Agrikoliansky, professor of political science at Paris-Dauphine: “This is where we find the most people who do not vote at all. It is a significant blind spot insofar as it is not really addressed by public policies. There is a lot of concern – au less in the speeches – of the question of abstention, which is indeed a central problem and which we have not really understood. ”

To change your polling place there is still the good old procedure in town hall. For almost three years, modification has also been possible online.