Presidential 2022: the government in favor of early voting

If parliamentarians adopted it, it would be a historic change.

The government tabled on Tuesday an amendment making it possible to vote "in advance" for the presidential election.

Concretely, the executive proposes that an electronic ballot box be installed in each county seat.

If a voter wishes, it would then be possible for him to vote in the six days preceding each of the two rounds and not necessarily in his commune of origin.

Easier for people on vacation or away from home.

"This secure device meets a need and will most certainly find its audience," says one at the Ministry of the Interior.

Is this a way for the government to anticipate that France will still be in an epidemic situation in spring 2022?

In any case, this amendment should help boost participation.

The count would take place the same Sunday of the poll.

If this text surprised, it is that the executive has always refused to modify the voting rules, despite the health context and examples from abroad, such as the images of recent elections in the United States or Portugal. , where early voting was very successful.

But beware: this last-minute proposal is far from unanimous in the Senate, where many elected officials fell from their chairs when they saw this amendment land.

"We do not understand why this idea is happening now, why like that," Hervé Marseille, president of the centrist Union group in the Senate, is surprised.

This amendment is a UFO.

It happens like a hair in the soup, without any consultation, without impact study.

At least, on the postal vote, there had been a debate!

"

"All of this is tinkered with and improvised!"

Several senators also emerge from the arguments already heard, with regard to any form of early voting: not all voters will vote with the same level of information, if some of them slip their ballot into the ballot box. before the official end of the electoral campaign.

“It's all tinkered with and improvised!

“, For his part sinks the socialist senator from Paris Rémi Féraud.

Why did the government not report on this new amendment when it was examining the text in the Assembly a few weeks ago?

"It took us a little time to mature the reflection", we justify, place Beauvau.

Majority in the upper house, the right is convinced that this is a measure intended to influence the course of the next presidential election.

And promises to nip this initiative in the bud, which will be examined in public session this Thursday.

"The Senate will oppose any political maneuver that would distort this essential meeting of our democracy", tweeted the boss of senators Les Républicains Bruno Retailleau, particularly upset.

"We are going to oppose it thoroughly", we entrust to the LR group, explaining that this provision "favors the urban vote" - it would therefore rather be in favor of the presidential majority - and "creates a breach of equality With a rural electorate, whose participation would not be encouraged here.

"There are always political ulterior motives in an electoral law, but there, the string is thick ..."