Talk:Elections in France

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I find French elections rather strange compared to Finnish elections. Why does the voter need to sign the ballot? If he/she is already checked for ID, this works as preventing double votes.

In Finland, a voter is given a voting ballot where he/she has to write the number of one candidate. Finnish elections are always only one candidate per voter, multiple candidates are not supported or allowed. The voter then folds the ballot and gives it to the official, who stamps it. The voter then puts the ballot into an opaque ballot box. This prevents either the voter or the official from substituting the ballot with another one in the process. It is not allowed to write or draw anything except the candidate number in the ballot. A single extra dot or line voids the vote.

I find this system very much more simple and secure than the French system. The article about the French presidential election says that the voter has to fold one of several pre-made candidate slips into an envelope. This works, but seems like needless work. Simply writing the candidate number on the ballot avoids the need to give several slips to every voter, thus cutting down on the amount of paper needed. JIP | Talk 17:53, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Opaque boxes were phased out of existence in France in 1988, because transparent boxes allow anybody to witness the absence of tampering of the box. David.Monniaux 06:52, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this is an improvement over the Finnish system by itself, but it doesn't answer my question. Transparent boxes do not necessitate signing the ballot, or having to select from multiple slips. JIP | Talk 16:32, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Signing the lists is a way to have a record of who voted, and thus to prevent double voting and to allow ensuring that the number of ballots matched the number of voters.

The pre-printed cards with the names of the candidates is a way to ensure that there is no possible way to identify who voted for whom. Rama 17:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand the second point but not the first. In the Finnish system, a legal and valid ID is needed to even enter the voting booth, let alone cast a vote. When checking the ID, the official also marks the voter in his/her list. If the voter is already there, he/she can't go back to the voting booth, because it would be a double vote. However, the French system does eliminate the unreasonable, but still theoretically valid, possibility of identifying a voter by his/her handwriting. This is also why the Finnish voting system forbids writing or drawing anything except the number on the slip. JIP | Talk 17:46, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not read German but I think the "Deutch" link is for the French Presidential Elections not Elections in France.

Yes it is. There is no article on the German Wikipedia about elections in France in general. JIP | Talk 05:09, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

No mention of electoral system

This article strangely omits an important detail: what is the electoral system? How are candidates deemed the winner? That's not described anywhere. --Rhombus (talk) 20:18, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

This depends on the kind of election. There is two-round runoff voting, proportional voting, etc. David.Monniaux (talk) 08:46, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Rhombus, there's a lot of detail which should go in this page. How long between the two rounds, for example? Nick Barnett (talk) 14:22, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

How often can the president be re-elected?

Is re-election limited like in the USA only twice or like in Germany without limitation? --92.74.16.139 (talk) 18:09, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

A French President may only be re-elected once (ie, have two consecutive terms). Just like in the US, tho, this doesn't prevent that person from being elected to office again for a third term later on.

Political vs other elections

The article focuses on political elections, that is, those that elect members of the legislature, the president, local governments. It does not mention other forms of official elections, such as those of workforce representatives, the (no longer held) election of the judges of workforce tribunals, the election of the judges of commerce tribunals. Is this an issue? David.Monniaux (talk) 20:38, 5 March 2024 (UTC)