“Abstaining first penalizes candidates whose electorate is young or popular”

Por the second time in a row in the history of our Republic, less than one out of two citizens came to take part in the choice of their deputy during the first round of legislative elections on 12 June. The historical record for abstention in this major national election has therefore once again been beaten: 52.3% of registered voters – compared to 51% in 2017 – having abstained on June 12, 2022. Let us add to this figure the 5% of non-voters. registered and we note that the next National Assembly could be designated by only 40% of the potential electorate.

In this context, the majority group – if there should be a majority – will represent, at best, one in five citizens. These figures are not a surprise and confirm the switch to a democracy of abstention where only the presidential election continues to mobilize massively, even if it is a little less each time. The campaign led by the presidential majority in the legislative elections, of particularly low intensity, seemed to rely on differential mobilization to confirm the victory of the President of the Republic, without really debating or fighting.

Because the presidential camp is in the majority among retirees and the favorite of the most educated and wealthy categories, much more consistent in their electoral participation than young people and working-class backgrounds, a strong abstention is a priori favorable to it. The most politicized categories which are also, apart from the activists, the most educated, do not necessarily need to be stimulated by a high-intensity campaign to go to the polls: they are interested in the ballot, seize the stakes, decipher the offers, will vote in any case, sometimes even watch for the results.

The weight of the social determinants of the vote

This is also the case for the oldest categories, who vote partly out of duty but even more out of habit. Even when they do not escape the ambient political skepticism, even when they do not fully recognize themselves in the offer or find it difficult to identify themselves in the waltz of political labels, seniors continue, despite everything, to vote in very significant proportions . These older categories, overrepresented both in the electorate of LR and Ensemble!, are also by far the most registered on the electoral lists because the most stable geographically.

On the other hand, nearly 40% of young people are not registered at the polling station closest to their effective residence and must therefore pay the additional cost of travel or of a power of attorney to participate in the designation of the elected representatives of the nation. In fact, the badly registered are, three times more than the well registered, systematic abstainers on the scale of an electoral sequence like that of 2022.

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