[EL] French vote-counting dispute

[Lillie Coney]

Hello Edward, I work with a couple of International civil society projects. I asked a contact in
France for their take on what is happening on the conservative opposition party and vote counting.  Their message follows:

Now the re-counting process is achieved, and the result is Jean-François Copé: 50.03% and François Fillon 49.97% (difference: 98 votes). The body responsible for the re-counting is an internal body, called COCOE (Commission for organization and control of electoral operations), but the initial (disputed) counting was made in an usual manner, in each voting bureau throughout the country.
There have been many, many irregularities, e.g. approx 1000 voting bulletins found in a bureau while there was only approx 500 voters signatures...
Not, given the results which are very close (though not disputed anymore), Copé is elected (and recognized as winner by Fillon) and the political suspense is still there: will they both discuss an agreement for a co-direction or something similar? It seems unlikely, since Fillon just declared that "there is a moral and political fracture" in the party. (well, he's now focusing on Paris Mayor election in 2014 and probably next presidential elections in 2017).
The National Front (Le Pen's extreme right wing) is of course very happy of such a shameful process (good for them), and so is the center-right (expecting to gain members among the UMP members disappointed with the 'hard line' of the winner).

I would add that there have been some interesting issues with public elections in developed democracies that are notable.  Another issue was the robo calls during the most recent Canadian Ridings that represented that they were from Elections Canada and redirected voters to the wrong polling locations.  It is under investigation by Canada's Chief Privacy Commissioner.

I hope this helps, let me know if you need anything else.

Lillie

On Nov 19, 2012, at 8:32 AM, Foley, Edward wrote:

> The media is reporting this morning that France’s conservative opposition party has become mired in a vote-counting dispute over the selection of the party’s new leader. 
>  
> What I’m able to gather is that the “electorate” is rather small: about 300,000 party members entitled to vote (of whom only about 60% cast ballots), with the current count separating the two candidates by about 200 votes or so.  Both sides apparently claim “irregularities” with some news stories referring  to allegations of “fraud”. 
>  
> Most interestingly (from my perspective), there is apparently a “commission” with jurisdiction to supervise the vote-counting and resolve the dispute.  Some news stories describe the commission as “independent,” but this Wall Street Journal report describes it as a “party commission”:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323353204578128571621869016.html
>  
> I’m curious to learn more about the status and composition of this commission—and whether this dispute will serve as a test of the ability to a commission to handle a dispute of this nature.  (For several years now, I have thought that France might be the most interesting and relevant comparison to the United States in terms of institutions and procedures to handle vote-counting disputes, because it has more of a presidential system than the English-speaking parliamentary systems with which the U.S. is often compared—Canada, Australia, Britain, etc.)
>  
> Do any members of this listserv have particular knowledge of French election law and could address the nature of the commission that has jurisdiction over this particular intra-party electoral dispute?
>  
> Thanks, Ned
>  
>  
> Edward B. Foley
> Director, Election Law @ Moritz
> Chief Justice Thomas J. Moyer Professor for the Administration of Justice and the Rule of Law
>  
> The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law
> (614) 292-4288; foley.33 at osu.edu
> Website: www.electionlaw.osu.edu
>  
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