Faced with the fear of abstention, avenues but little concrete

“Voting is a right, it is also a civic duty”, recalls each voter card in white letters on a navy blue background. However, year after year, abstention has become massive, rising to more than 65% in the second round of the last regional. A strong abstention in the presidential election of 2022 is “the worst that can happen to us,” warned Jean-Luc Mélenchon in a recent speech to activists from La France insoumise. A “stupid trap”, even, which would benefit only Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, believes the candidate.

To work on the issue, a parliamentary mission was created in recent weeks to the National Assembly, which launched a citizen consultation until the end of the month. His work aims to better understand “the springs of abstention” and to find ways to promote electoral participation in the hope of “warding off fate”, explains to 20 Minutes Stéphane Travert, his LREM reporter. Respondents to the online questionnaire are invited in particular to assess “the evolution of the democratic debate”, to say whether they are in favor of “a regime making more use of the referendum” or to indicate whether they are in favor of the recognition of the blank vote. as “one vote cast”.

Since abstention is “the first party in France”, “today we have a duty to ensure that this party can find expression, continues Stéphane Travert. We obviously say to ourselves that we need to re-legitimize the vote. The deputy explains despite everything being, in a personal capacity, opposed to the taking into account of the blank vote or the establishment of compulsory voting.

Changing the rules of the electoral game

“Abstention is a means of indicating that the electoral offer is not satisfactory”, observes Mathilde Larrère, specialist in political and social history. It is not a rejection of “the political”, but rather of the “political game”, considers the academic, many citizens having the feeling that its rules are “loaded”. “There is a lot of work to be done to regain the confidence of the voters”, recognizes Stéphane Travert, who notes that some will not vote because of the conviction “it is of no use”.

Faced with this finding of “a real democratic bug”, the A voté association was created the day after the last departmental and regional elections, for which 87% of 18-24 year olds did not attend in the first round. His hobbyhorse: the problem of badly registered or unregistered people, who could represent up to a quarter of the French electorate. It appears essential “to encourage registration on the electoral lists”, believes its co-president, Dorian Dreuil, also associate expert at the Jean-Jaurès Foundation.

Possible leads

The law has made progress in this area: since 2018, the deadline for registering has gone from December 31 to the sixth Friday before the election. Other measures have also been validated in recent years to facilitate voting. In another area, it will also be possible for 2022 – this has been the case since April 6 – to request a dematerialized proxy.. A trip to the police station or the gendarmerie brigade
to verify their identity will however remain mandatory. During the departmental and regional meetings of 2021, due to the health crisis, temporary measures had also been put in place, such as the possibility of
have two proxies.

Other reforms aimed at increasing participation, such as the simplification of certain voting methods – proxies, electronic ballot, advance or correspondence, etc. – are among the avenues regularly mentioned by politicians. However, they cannot materially be adopted by the spring. The conclusions of the parliamentary mission will be known at the end of the year.

For Mathilde Larrère, the question of how to vote is not enough: “Making the voters responsible for abstention is a way to avoid seeing that political life does not make them dream enough to move around and want to choose. “. According to her, real inclusion of the blank vote in the electoral results could bring some abstainers back to the polls. A measure demanded by a large number of readers of 20 Minutes, whom we interviewed as part of a call for testimonies.

Believe in presidential magic

“There is no inevitability in the abstention of young people”, explained recently to 20 Minutes Frédéric Dabi, Ifop’s “opinion” director general, who also emphasized the special nature of the election of the President of the Republic. “The presidential election is part of a continuum” and participation should, according to him, remain in 2022 at the levels recorded during the last two elections, with participation in the first round at 75.68% and 78.69% respectively. “There is a kind of presidential magic,” he continues. An Ipsos-Sopra Steria survey published on Friday by The world draws a slightly less optimistic scenario for 2022. Only 59% of French people questioned would be “certain” to vote, against 67% at the same time five years ago.

“People are very attached to this election, because we come to elect a man or a woman who has a social project for the next five years”, underlines Stéphane Travert. However, the deputy is more worried about the future. Mass abstention could “come back for legislative elections and then Europeans, municipal elections, etc.” By then, will we vote more in 2022 than in 2017? To your crystal balls.