The technical problem solved a few hours before the deadline. While online voting was opened for French people living abroad on May 27, several voters testified to the impossibility of casting their vote due to a technical error. Indeed, the email containing a validation code, necessary to confirm their vote on the dedicated platform, never reached voters with a Yahoo email address, the Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.
“During the voting operations which began Friday noon, a technical difficulty, which had not occurred during the two full-scale tests, was noted”, lamented the Quai d’Orsay in a press release. All voters concerned will be contacted as soon as they are able to vote, before the end of online voting on Wednesday June 1. “The vote continues to take place without any other significant difficulty”, still relay our colleagues. While Internet voting, which is only possible for legislative and consular elections, is supposed to facilitate the procedures for French citizens voting abroad, in particular because of the potential difficulties in accessing embassies and consulates, this error manifesto is a serious hiccup for national diplomacy.
According to information from Le Parisien, this technical problem has finally been resolved, just a few hours before the closing of the online vote which will take place on Wednesday noon. Several affected witnesses do claim to have received a message on Tuesday morning that “a technical solution has been identified and implemented”. The information is confirmed by the ministry, which wrote on Tuesday: “The sending of emails to Yahoo and AOL addresses is operational again, in particular for the transmission of confirmation codes (allowing the voter to confirm their choice of candidate or candidate and vote definitively)”.
According to information from Franceinfo, several hundred French voters have been affected by this technical problem around the world. Many of them expressed their dismay on social networks. “If it’s not settled in time, I will be one of the abstainers in spite of myself”, one of them deeply regretted.
Some candidates in the legislative ballot for the constituencies abroad have also announced, to Franceinfo, “consider taking legal action”. They would then ask for more time to vote, or even a new ballot.
