Citizens have an appointment with the ballot box on 20 and 27 June to elect the new departmental councillors. Candidates, voting system, power of attorney, departmental council powers… Find all the answers to your questions.
Summary Date of departmental elections Candidates in departmental elections Who votes in departmental elections ? Operation Polls Departmental results The main thing On Sunday 20 and 27 June, citizens are called to go to their polling stations for the regional elections, but also for the departmental elections (which replaced the cantonal elections in 2015). The Parliament agreed to postpone the dates of the elections twice, given the health crisis and the still very active circulation of the coronavirus in France. These dates of the departmental elections are now set in stone and should no longer evolve. All lists of candidates for the departmental elections were filed on May 17, 2021. It is possible to consult them in their entirety, department by department, on the website of the Ministry of the Interior. These 2021 departmental elections come as the campaign for the 2022 presidential election is already starting to mobilize the main political formations. The outcome of these elections will therefore provide lessons to be analysed, too, under this national prism. If the departmental councilors are mandated for six years, the candidates elected in June will serve on the council for seven years, exceptionally. The next elections would have taken place in 2027 and would have disrupted the presidential campaign, so the government decided to postpone them for a year. This year, these departmental elections are very special, since the campaign cannot be organized in a normal mode of operation, without a meeting or public meeting. The election itself meets singular requirements : the government provides a strict health protocol to secure the holding of departmental 2021, so that voters can move in their polling station in respect of barrier gestures.
Operation, campaign, candidates, polls… Here is everything you need to know about the organization of these 2021 departmental elections.
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Are departmental elections a political issue ?
The results of the regional elections will be decisive and will give the trends a year before the presidential election, but the departmental elections can also be a clue for parties and redefine the strategies of electoral campaigns. The elections to elect the departmental council reflect the local anchoring of the parties in each territory and if some are historically left or right, many are those where the situation can tip. In 2010, the left held the majority of departments until the blue wave of 2015. This year in addition to the traditional parties, La République en Marche and the Rassemblement national hope to better position themselves or strengthen their local anchoring for the 2022. Both are less likely to win a department in particular the presidential majority which since its beginning has been a party with a national vision but struggles to establish itself on smaller scales.
Does the departmental council have cultural competence ?
Culture is one of the areas of competence of the departmental council. Among other things, it must act for the conservation of heritage and museums and create and manage departmental libraries and archives. He can also take part in the organization of cultural and/or sports events. But the departmental council is not the only one to intervene on this point, because culture is part of the “shared competences” between the different territorial collectivities as provided for in Article L-1111-4 of the General Code of territorial collectivities : “Competences in the field of promotion of equality between women and men, culture, sport, tourism, promotion of regional languages and popular education are shared between municipalities, departments, regions and collectivities with special status.”
Is the blank vote counted in the votes cast ?
The blank vote consists of not choosing one of the candidates in the running and placing a blank ballot or an empty envelope in the ballot box, but it allows the voter to cast a ballot at the polling station and not be counted as an abstainer. Only blank votes, such as void votes (torn, annotated or deteriorated) are not taken into account in determining the number of votes cast. This figure corresponds only to the number of voters who actually put a name in the ballot box.
Who can be a candidate in the departmental elections ?
Three conditions are required to become a candidate in departmental elections : one must be over 18 years old, have the quality of voter, that is to say be French and enjoy his civil rights, finally one must be domiciled or pay his taxes in the department where one wishes to run. But departmental elections have the particularity of electing candidates in pairs composed of u
