On the evening of Christelle Luisier’s election to the Council of State, this Sunday, the first hot analysis of the figures showed several lessons: the PLR candidate elected in the first round outstripped her opponents in 308 of the 309 municipalities, with the exception of Romainmôtier where victory went to Juliette Vernier (Climate Strike).
In addition, it obtained an absolute majority (more than 50% of the votes) in 281 towns and villages. In the aftermath of the election, the analysis brings other lessons.
A very relative city-country divide
Does the gap between the city and the countryside still exist in the canton? Not sure, seeing the result of Christelle Luisier. If we take its scores in the municipalities of more than 10’000 inhabitants, we notice indeed that it garnered an average of 53% of the votes. Against 61% in the smaller municipalities: 58% for towns with 5,000 to 10,000 inhabitants, 61% in villages with 1,000 to 5,000 inhabitants and 62% in even smaller municipalities.
But the spectrum of her scores in cities is so wide that one cannot deduce that urban centers have actually voted less for her. She thus achieved 38% in Lausanne and 43% in Vevey, while she made 65% in Lutry and 60% in Pully.
Juliette Vernier, the candidate for the Climate Strike, for her part, obtains an average score of 26% in the cities and 19% in the boroughs and the villages (there either without much difference between the categories).
The left not mobilized for Christelle Luisier
On the right, several strategists estimated Sunday that Christelle Luisier had succeeded in convincing the voters of the left. Is this really the case? Analysis of the figures would rather show that it had refueled in the right-wing electorate, without mobilizing more.
In fact 75,800 voters used a liberal-radical stamped ballot. This corresponds almost exactly to the number of right-wing voters in the first round of the Council of States last October: 36,900 PLR ballots, 27,200 UDC and 11,700 Liberal Greens (a total of around 75,900) . Besides, the PLR made the same calculation at the time to estimate the potential weight of Olivier Français in the second round.
Sometimes poorly counted whites and dummies
In a dozen small municipalities, the proportion of blank or spoiled ballots is particularly high. There are, for example, 38.4% of blank ballots in Saint-George, 37.6% in Corbeyrier, 34.9% in Rolle and 31.3% in Bullet.
A rage from the voters? Not necessarily. This Sunday, around 200,000 Vaudois participated in federal elections, but only 140,000 also voted for the election to the Council of State. So that’s about 60,000 people who only slipped federal ballots in their envelopes, a perfectly legal gesture. However, some electoral offices considered that this should be considered as blank or void votes for the cantonal ballot.
“There is no cabal against the Canton,” says Laurence Bermejo-Dubois, president of the Communal Council of Rolle. She recognizes that she should perhaps have called the prefect, but insists that this way of doing things had no effect on the election.
In Vinzel, on the other hand, people defend themselves for having worked poorly. Christophe Berthoud, the vice-president of the General Council, notes that an envelope without ballot was badly counted, but that the others were actually real blank ballots. “It was a vote on a non-choice that should not have taken place,” she adds. There was a recognized candidate and three others who presented themselves opportunistically. The number of blank ballots does not reflect a protest vote against the Canton. ”
Created: 10.02.2020, 9:23 p.m.
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