Voting and expressing dissatisfaction: an experiment during the 2017 French Presidential election

Abstract

This paper reports an experiment realised with 850 electors during the 2017 French presidential election. It tested a ballot di¤erent from the official one. Instead of voting for a unique candidate, participants were asked to cast one vote on each candidate. The vote could be "in favor", "neutral" or "against". The theoretical advantages of such a ballot are discussed and tested empirically.The support of the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under project ECO2015-67519-P, and of the Departamento de Educación, Política Lingüística y Cultura from the Basque Government (Research Group IT568-13) is also gratefully acknowledged