With the local elections that took place yesterday and my experience as election officer nearly two weeks ago for the first round of the French presidential elections, I was once again able to compare the organisation of polling stations in France and in Britain. Here are a few observations and remarkable differences:
– When do you vote? In Britain, elections are on Thursdays, usually the first Thursday of May. In France, you vote on Sundays (and many times, since most elections have two rounds.
– Where can you find polling stations? In France, they are usually public buildings, but there can be exceptions. For instance, the polling station in Aberdeen was at the Total school (yes, as in Total the oil company. It’s Aberdeen). In Britain, it is rather common for polling stations to be in schools. Last year, I voted in a Stockbridge primary school for the Scottish Parliament election. In Edinburgh, many churches were also used to house polling stations. Coming from a country with separation between state and church, I found that not a little odd (but so did my English flatmate, so maybe voting in churches is a Scottish thing). But it was not as odd as the polling station in the Lauriston Place Novotel.
– Candidates standing outside polling stations: In Edinburgh as everywhere around the country, candidates and their agents were standing outside polling stations with a rosette on their lapel. In France, it is forbidden to campaign outside polling stations. Of course, this is not really a problem we have abroad, since we’re really, really far from the candidates, and campaigning for a French election outside the polling station would be campaigning on foreign soil, which might be construed as a breach of public order. In fact, in France, campaigning altogether ends at midnight on the Friday preceding the (Sunday) election. This day without campaigning (also common to other countries) is called a ‘day of reflection’, when voters can think about their choice without last-minute candidate interference, or get a welcome break after a very long campaign.
Here is the image of a Green candidate standing outside a polling station in Glasgow.
– Display of electoral propaganda at the polling station. In France, posters are displayed outside the room where voting takes place in an order predetermined by the Constitutional Court, and the ballot papers are placed on the table in the same order. As the picture below suggests, rules about displays of electoral propaganda outside polling stations are, well, a lot more relaxed in Britain.
– Making sure that the right person is voting. In a French polling station, anyone who wants to vote needs a form of identification with a picture (national identity card, passport, which can be expired by up to 2 years, driver’s licence and, abroad, consular registration card). The first thing a voter does is present her card to a person in charge of making sure that she is on the electoral register. Before she casts her ballot, she must again show her ID to a person at the voting table, where her identity will be checked again. This tends to create a bit of a delay in front of the ballot box, as voters tend to put their ID back in their pocket, bag or purses, and they have to look for the ID again. She will then be able to cast her ballot and sign the electoral register.
In Britain, the electoral register is organised by address and not alphabetically by voters name. As a result, the person in charge of checking that you are on the electoral register asks for your address. You do not have to show your polling card (good for because mine had been sent at my old address, and I voted in my old ward) or any form of ID. Of course they do not have ID cards here. But as my name is odd by local standards, I thought that showing him my passport to check for the name would be helpful. He absolutely didn’t care.
– The polling booth. In France, polling booths have a curtain to protect the secrecy of the vote. Election officers must make sure that people do indeed draw the curtain behind them after they’ve entered the booth. In the UK, you’ve guessed it, no curtain. You only have your back to protect the secrecy of your vote from prying eyes (though who would care who I voted for is beyond me).
– Children in the polling booth. In France, it is absolutely verboten! As mentioned above, voting is secret and this secret must be protected from all, children included. Exceptions can be made for babies, but that’s it. In the absence of clear guidelines about this, the Edinburgh polling station took the ability to walk as a cut-off point. You can walk, however small you may be, then you’re out of the voting booth. Many kids wanted to go and see what happens in the booth, and we had to disappoint them all. There were even tears once, but we had to remain stoic. In the UK, of course, children up to 18 can go in the booth with their parents (though to be fair, the booths were pretty small – not like our fancy booth that could accommodate a wheelchair). It is (probably understandably) seen as a way to familiarise children with a key part of the democratic process. Of course, sometimes allowing a child in the polling booth is wrong, very wrong.
– The ballot box. In Edinburgh, the ballot box was a black plastic box, with a slot in the front, facing toward the voters. No one checked what I was doing. French ballot boxes more or less look like this:
A transparent box, with a closable slot that is usually opened with a lever activated by an election officer. The box is transparent to show to those present at the opening of the polling station that it is empty at the start of the election. There is also usually a little counter activated by the lever. In my experience, the lever is very sensitive, and it is easy to activate the counter without noticing. I think the counter indicated four or five more ballots than we actually had in the box. In addition to the level, a thick copy of the Electoral Code is usually kept over the slot between ballots.
– A voté! One very big part of the French voting ritual is the ‘a voté!’ pronounced by the person standing behind the ballot box. I remember feeling very proud after hearing my first ‘a voté!’. You oddly feel like you’ve really achieved something. Of course, after I’ve said it a couple hundred times 2 weeks ago, I bet it won’t have the same effect any more. In Britain, no such official acknowledgement that you’ve accomplished your duty as a citizen. Maybe because it’s only normal, so there’s really no need to shout about it. In fact, no one was
– The exit. After you’ve cast your ballot in a French polling station and someone has said ‘a voté’, you’re not quite done. You still have to sign next to your name in the electoral register. Then, you get your ID back, and you’re ready to go. In Britain, after you’ve cast your ballot, you’re done and you can leave, often to go to work (unless you’ve come after work).
I have long come to the conclusion that the polling station is the last place in Britain with complete social trust. When you vote, no one cares who you are as long as some one else doesn’t try to use your name (or rather, address) to vote. In contrast, if there are a lot of people enjoying the sun in the Meadows, you can be sure a mobile CCTV unit will be dispatched on site. Voting is also looks like a very relaxed affair, with fewer rules than in France. Here is a nice article from the BBC website about the dos and don’ts in British polling stations
In France, in contrast, it looks like a history of failed Republics, fixed elections and late institutionalisation of democracy have led to a very regulated process, in which your identity is checked and checked again, the number of ballots that you take is counted (with one ballot paper per candidate and the secrecy of the vote, voters must show that they enter the both with at least two ballot papers), and your civil act rewarded with an ‘a voté’. This makes voting in France very much of a ritual> A secular Sunday ritual.
Elodie Fabre 
