As regards the ballot of 8 December, it is worth noting that the electoral campaign, the ballot and the counting went perfectly: the voting operations were perfectly regular on a formal level.
The minutes were signed unanimously by both the presidents of the polling stations, and by the secretaries, and by the delegates of the lists, since the five trade union organizations that presented the candidates for the elections were represented in this capacity.
A difficulty arose at the end of the voting operations in one of the five bodies (the Territorial Social Committee) of the Bastia office, which has 2,910 members.
This difficulty requires the following clarifications.
Two voting methods were possible for the ballot on 8 December:
– Physical voting, possible depending on the administrative domiciliation: for the CST,
In Bastia, 463 agents voted out of 623 registered (ie a percentage of 74.3% of voters);
– Voting by mail, open to agents not involved in administrative domiciliation which allows for physical voting: 1,555 mailing votes were counted, out of a possible total of 2,287 registered (or a percentage of 67.9% of voters).
As regards postal electoral envelopes, please note that the procedure provides that, after having been sealed at the Post Office, the envelopes are sent to the headquarters of the Collectivity of Corsica, then delivered to the polling station, which opens them and counts the votes.
However, after the results were communicated, the further checks led to the detection of a discrepancy between the number of postal voting envelopes registered at the polling station (1,555) and the theoretical number of postal voting envelopes announced by the Post Office at the time of the delivery of the envelopes to the officials of the Collectivity of Corsica, in charge of recovering them, in the presence of a representative of each trade union organization (ie 2006).
This situation initially gave rise to fears that 451 envelopes (i.e. the difference between the 2006 envelopes announced by La Poste and the 1,555 counted during the voting operations) could have disappeared between their arrival at the Collectivité premises under seal, and their transport to the polling station electoral .
Investigations and checks were immediately carried out, under the authority of the Director General of Services, of the DGA in charge of the administrative organization of the ballot, and contradictory for having responded favorably to the union organizations to the invitation to participate in these checks. (STC, CFDT , CGT and FO; SNT not having been present).
These procedures consisted of verifying, in the presence of the people who participated in the various stages of the operation, whether 451 envelopes could have materially disappeared between the recovery of the sealed bag at the postal services and the end of the voting operations.
These due diligence, including viewing the video surveillance footage, made it possible to demonstrate with certainty that no envelope had disappeared between the moment the envelope was opened and the end of the voting operations.
Thus, it is most likely due to a clerical error that the remittance slip issued to the Collectivity of Corsica by La Poste erroneously mentions 2,006 envelopes, while the bag obviously only contained 1,555.
The bag delivery procedure normally involves a cross-check of the number of bags at the time of delivery, a check that should have allowed the error to be detected at this stage.
Unfortunately, since this formality was not completed, the clerical error of mentioning the slip could not be detected at the time of delivery.
The sealed bag, recovered at 2.00 pm, arrived in the premises of the Corsican Community at 2.30 pm, where the agents of its reception, the agents of the administration and the representatives of the five trade unions present at the time of its reception proceeded to open the said bag, for the purpose of sending the envelopes to the polling station.
At the time of this opening, the agents and representatives of the union organizations present made use of the number relating to the year 2006 shown in the bulletin sent by post.
They simply counted the envelopes in packs of 10 and classified them alphabetically, given the need to mail the envelopes by 4.30pm, the start of postal voting operations.
All envelopes were then transported safely to the polling station, where they were all unquestionably registered as part of the voting process.
It is therefore certain that 1,555 postal voting envelopes were delivered to the Collectivity of Corsica and duly counted.
With regard to all these elements, the Collectivity of Corsica, in agreement with the STC, CGT and FO trade unions, who participated in the operations and checks mentioned above, confirms that:
– All the physical and postal votes cast during the professional ballot of 8 December 2022 were counted in the results of said ballot, since the voting operations were perfectly regular;
– The sincerity of the vote and its results is total, as evidenced by the minutes signed unanimously and without reservations
