THE QUESTION.
This is a dark scenario agitated by some opponents of the advance poll, via voting machines, proposed by the government: opening this procedure, unprecedented in France, to voluntary voters on the occasion of the 2022 presidential election, would cause a risk of fraud.
"Can we falsify the result of the ballot?"
, worries the Insoumis deputy Bastien Lachaud, echoing the warnings of the right and the National Gathering.
To read also: Presidential 2022: the government wants to authorize the vote "in advance"
Accessible to the visually impaired, paper-saving, promise of immediate counting ... Electronic voting, adorned with virtues by its supporters, aims to "
widen participation, reduce the costs of elections and modernize the image of politics
", indicated the candidate Macron in 2017. At the risk of promoting electoral fraud?
CHECKS
.
Voting machines have "
proven major drawbacks
", pointed out senators in a report published in 2014. "
Without even talking about hacking, bugs could be massive and invisible
", warns Chantal Enguehard, specialist in electronic voting techniques at the University of Nantes.
“
It is indeed impossible, for the moment, to combine both secrecy of the vote and security of the vote.
In order for security to be increased, the vote should be made traceable and therefore the confidentiality of the vote should be violated.
Overrepresented dysfunctions
Anxious to guarantee the sincerity of the election, the National Commission for Informatics and Liberties (CNIL) formulated recommendations in 2003: voting file and voting list on separate computer systems, "
strong
"
encryption algorithms
, confirmation of its vote received by the voter ... An approval procedure and controls are applied to voting machines.
To read also: Gérard Larcher on the advance poll: "The executive cannot treat Parliament like this"
However, malfunctions are over-represented in the polling stations in the sixty or so municipalities using such equipment.
During the 2019 European elections, the differences between the number of votes cast and the number of votes were 3.2 times greater than in traditional offices, according to a study by the Voting Observatory.
“
The majority of the differences are not explained.
The hypothesis of a voting computer creating or losing votes cannot be eliminated a priori
”, we can read in the report.
The fear of manipulation led the government in 2008 to decree a moratorium preventing new municipalities from allowing electronic voting.
Citizen confidence damaged
While the Constitutional Council was never directly referred to the article of the law authorizing voting machines in 1969, the German Constitutional Court banned their use in 2009. The reason given concerns first of all the support of the public the voting process, rather than the risk of errors: each citizen must be able to control operations, otherwise the “
well-founded confidence of the citizen in the proper functioning of the elections
” is damaged, judges the court of Karlsruhe.
Read also: Advance poll: "It would be contrary to the spirit of the Republic"
"
If the voting process involves the use of a machine which only a specialist can assure me that it has not been hacked or made no mistake, my confidence is less
," explains the
Figaro
Benjamin Morel, lecturer in public law at the University of Paris-II.
Even less, according to him, if a part of the voters expresses themselves in anticipation: "
There is then a dissymmetry of information between the voter of Monday and that of Sunday
".