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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4774 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 7, 2024

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Apparently the French right-wing party did way worse than expected?

Anyone know why the polling was so far off?

I'm not sure the polling was wrong, rather than the situation changed, often dramatically. A significant portion of the running politicians dropped out, with instructions for their voters to support other candidates, sometimes candidates that normally would not be obvious second choices.

A pretty remarkable trust exercise and/or intense negotiation, if we're being honest. I can't imagine coordinating so many down-ballot dropouts, not to mention making the call about individual personalities and leaning on them to drop out as well (presumably most everyone who ran, wanted the job).

Not the first time this has happened. People working within these types of political systems are generally better at this kind of coalition-building. This whole left coalition was assembled in two weeks after the election announcement. Meanwhile Americans are fretting about whether or not four months is enough time to switch candidates.

Say it in hushed tones but I think the European far right has a ceiling of 30-35% because the rest of society will make any compromises necessary to keep them out of any real power (we saw what happened the last time). In the end they'll be loud and a thorn in everyone's sides but utterly and completely insignificant in therms of how much power they wield. I think Macron was completely correct to call out the voter's bluff and slap down Le Pen by proxy.

People noticed how the UK's election saw our far right Reform party get less than 1% of the seats on around 15% of the vote and they talk about how FPTP stops extremists but a part of me feels that because of FPTP the UK is one of the few places where the far right could ever end up welding significant power because unlike Europe where 35% gets you 35% of the seats and no power here 35% (or less) can give you a large majority to enact whatever laws you want.

Or maybe it could be that no single party enjoys more than say 35% support in pretty much any European country?

As for the "far right" they're in the government of multiple European nations or direct supporters of the sitting government in multiple nations right now.

The issue isn't that they can't get in power but that accomplishing their goals is very hard due to how broad reforms they need to accomplish them, with important parts often tied up in international agreements/conventions.

My assumption is that it's hard to estimate how willing and disciplined people are to turn out not to vote for their own party but against a party they dislike. Turnout for the second round remained very high, so RN lost because they're very unpopular among their non-supporters.

Deliberate errors in counting

More effort and evidence than this, please.

Unlikely given that French ballots are counted by hand at commune level in full view of the candidates' representatives.

Why you think that polls would deliberately overestimate it?

Do you have any evidence for vote fraud?

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