Les Élections Françaises!

So as you probably know, yesterday was the first round of the French presidential elections! In France, the presidential election happens in two rounds. In the first, there are like 10 candidates, and then the two with the most votes advance to the second round of voting, which is two weeks later. The precincts work like in the US, the local one here was a big meeting room just down the street. Obviously, I did not actually vote, but I did go in the evening as they were closing to watch them count the votes. (Can you do that in the US???) I'm pretty sure the voting system is that in the booth, there are stacks of paper with each candidate's name on them, and you pick one, fold it, and put it into a little blue envelope, which you then put in the ballot box. No huge scantron forms that I saw. I'm pretty sure write-in candidates aren't allowed.

The voter turnout is really high in France. At the local bureau de vote, it was like 82%, and a lot of people are saying this isn't even a very exciting election for most French people. My host-family and some other French people there watching the vote-counting told me that voting is considered a really important responsibility in France; a lot of people, especially older people, get dressed up to go vote, and parents take their children to set the example of being an active citizen. Meanwhile, the US managed 57% in 2008. That's embarrassing...

Watching them count the votes was interesting. There were a couple employees from the mayor's office, and the rest were volunteers. They set up tables of four people, with one person opening envelopes, one person reading off the ballots and organizing them into piles, and two people keeping tally sheets of the votes. At the end, they compare the two tally sheets and recount the piles to make sure it's all correct. I felt kind of weird being an American and watching like the behind-the-scenes of the French elections, but it was also cool to see. Yay transparency of the democratic process!

Anyways, Nicolas Sarkozy, the current president, and François Hollande, the main challenger from the left, are advancing to round two. Hollande had more votes this round, but it all depends on how people who voted for candidates who didn't make it change their votes.

We'll see how things happen in two weeks! À bientôt!