Is it possible to know the results of the Legislative elections before the vote is over? As surprising as it may seem, leaks can emerge before 8 p.m., as with every election. We explain everything to you.
No official result before 8 p.m., whether on radio, television or on the web. The rule still applies for this first round of the legislative elections, Sunday June 30, 2024. However, as with every election, numerous leaks hamper French law, sometimes spreading false information about the election results. Leaks which mainly come from foreign sites, which are not subject to the same regulations as in France and which allow themselves certain largesse. Several Belgian media, including Le Soir, have indicated their intention to publish initial estimates before 8 p.m. without however giving timetables or guarantees. But there are many precedents!
During the presidential election two years ago, several Belgian media outlets had published estimates and polls on the Internet. The “Poll Commission”, which governs the rules in France, had been very bothered. In particular, it had published a press release shortly before the vote in which it said it had received assurances from the 8 main French institutes (BVA, Elabe, Harris interactive, Kantar-TNS-Sofres, IFOP, Ipsos, Odoxa, OpinionWay) that none of them were behind these studies. It therefore described the polls published by media outlets that were nevertheless recognized as “rumors”. OpinionWay felt obliged to indicate on Twitter that it had not published “any data” on the vote.
The electoral code leaves no doubt as to the time of dissemination of the results, article L52-2 specifies: “No election result, partial or final, can be communicated to the public by any means whatsoever, in mainland France, before the closing of the last polling station in the mainland territory. The same applies in the overseas departments before the closing of the last polling station in each of the departments concerned. However, although the vast majority of offices close at 6 or 7 p.m., in large cities the opening hours are extended to 8 p.m. Monitoring of compliance with schedules is such that no traditional media outlets risk defying the ban on election nights by publishing the results in advance.
Concerning the first round of the legislative elections this Sunday evening, if we still do not know what trends are emerging at the polls, it is worth recalling what the polls predicted this week. According to all the institutes, it was the National Rally which was in the lead on Friday, with around 36% of voting intentions. Behind, the New Popular Front was given around 27%, when the majority list capped at 20%.
Why can’t the results be published on French sites? The reason is simple: the law prohibits any dissemination of information on the scores of candidates in current elections, so as not to distort the vote. And in France, the vote this Sunday does not close until precisely 8 p.m. Moreover, the French media and the Ministry of the Interior, which will begin to give partial results for these European elections, are taking some generosity with the demands of the European Commission, which would like each country to wait until the end of the election European Union in all member states (Italy does not close the poll until 11 p.m.).
However, the first results of the legislative elections will be known only a few well before 8 p.m.: polling institutes are carrying out surveys in a few representative polling stations on French territory to establish the first estimates which will be given by the French media at 8 p.m.
These figures and estimates are confidential until H-hour, but with each election, there are leaks on social networks, particularly on Twitter with the hashtag #RadioLondres. Be careful with these messages, which are often coded: they may be rumors and false information, and if they are leaks of poll data, they remain unreliable before 8 p.m. It should also be noted that the Belgian and Swiss media are not subject to the French ban on broadcasting estimates for the 2024 European elections before 8 p.m.
