The meeting was given at 7:30 a.m. this Thursday morning, at the Marsac-sur-l’Isle exhibition center in the Dordogne. State officials, but also members of the departmental council, the town hall of Périgueux, former gendarmes and their families, or temporary workers… In all, 320 people volunteered. For two days, they will envelop more than 16 million election documentsfor voters and polling stations in Dordogne.
A military organization
Everyone here has in mind the objective set: everything must leave tomorrow, Friday April 1, in the evening. For this, the organization is quasi-military. The exhibition center is divided into four inserting areas, with in each area, four sections of four islands. Nadine sorts the ballot papers, she forms small packets of six candidates. “It’s a bit of assembly line work, but there’s a good atmosphere”, she said, smiling. Behind her, Christophe and Manu are busy piling up the professions of faith of the candidates. In normal life, they are both controllers of public finances. “It’s changing, there’s no need to think too much”, says Manu. He does not hide it, he chose to participate “to discover”, but also for the pecuniary aspect. Because volunteers are paid 21 cents per envelope. “I did my little calculation, we have to make four envelopes a minute, it’s largely doable”he said, laughing.
It is therefore necessary to act quickly, and well. Because just behind them, the supervisors, yellow vests on their backs, watch. Regularly, they select an envelope, open it, and check that there are indeed the 12 ballot papers and the 12 professions of faith of the candidates. In case of errors, the entire box must be checked. On the other side of the barrier, the packing area is preparing other packets of ballot papers, which will go directly to the polling stations.
The envelopes are then loaded onto trolleys, the Post Office will have four days to distribute them either to the 319,000 voters in the department, or to the 690 polling stations in the 503 communes of Dordogne.
– Joan of Butler