The place is amazing.
Sunday April 24, the voters of the commune of Cizancourt, in the Somme, were invited to vote in the church of their commune.
As a voting booth, the confessional of this small place of worship.
An office which did not convince the Constitutional Council: "
The conduct of the ballot in this place of worship being likely to undermine the freedom and sincerity of the ballot, it is necessary to cancel all the votes expressed in this town
,” he wrote in a decision published on Wednesday evening April 27.
In fact, the 25 ballots cast in this church by voters were not taken into account in the result of the second round.
To discover
YOUR COMMUNE - The results of the second round of the presidential election in your area
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In Cizancourt as in some 70,000 polling stations in the territory, the delegated magistrates of the institution ensured on Sunday the smooth running of the votes and the counting.
In all, the Constitutional Council singled out more than 25 polling stations in which the ballot did not take place in accordance with the rules of the Electoral Code, almost as many as during the first round.
On the other hand, the number of canceled votes has almost doubled: 20,000 votes cast were rejected for the second round, against 10,000 during the first.
Nothing, however, that could influence the outcome of the vote.
This is for example the case of the high profile abstention of the former candidate Jean Lassalle.
On Sunday, filmed by several cameras, the Béarnais openly placed his ballot in his pocket instead of depositing it in the ballot box.
A "
staging
" "
immediately broadcast on social networks
" which was not to the taste of the Constitutional Council.
Considering that "
by his behaviour, he undermined the respect due to the dignity of the electoral operations in which he participated as a candidate in the first round
" and that this could "
alter the sincerity of the ballot in this commune
", the 90 votes expressed have been cancelled.
White bulletin available
But most of the incidents concern more classic errors, of an organizational nature and often less publicized.
Starting with the sixteenth arrondissement of Paris, where 1098 votes were canceled because of a ballot box without a padlock.
In Perpignan, it was the counting that posed a problem.
Without double checking, reading aloud or counting the ballots as they were, the 609 votes cast had to be invalidated.
In the Bas-Rhin, the Herbitzheim polling station drew the attention of the Elders: 1,098 votes were discarded because "
voters were invited to sign the attendance list before depositing their ballot in the ballot box
" , observes the Institution.
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Another error that caused the cancellation in 4 polling stations: the provision of blank ballots alongside the names of two candidates.
“
The presence of documents other than the ballots of the candidates constitutes an irregularity likely to influence the voters
”, notes the Constitutional Council, which therefore rejects more than 1,200 votes in the commune of Francheville and 1,404 votes in Saint-Paul -in-Chablais (Haute-Savoie).
In the town of Molring, in Moselle, the reason for the cancellation is more surprising: no secretary and assessors were present on site.
Moreover "
no voting booth has been made available to voters
", observes the Constitutional Council.
Irregularities that earned the cancellation of 15 votes.
Organization also criticized in Guinecourt (Pas-de-Calais) and Glux-en-Glenne, where the polling stations were closed at 1 p.m. for the first and 6 p.m. for the second, well before the official closing of the polls at 7 p.m.
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Finally, in Saint-Lon-les-Mines, in the Landes, the delegate magistrate of the Constitutional Council noted "
that it was possible to introduce ballot papers into the ballot box through an opening other than that provided for this purpose.
".
An irregularity which led to the cancellation of 708 votes in the municipality.
