There are two huge elections taking place in Europe right now, one in the UK and one in France. Most of you no doubt understand that various electoral systems but it is rather complicated, especially in France, so in case you have some questions I thought I’d direct you to an excellent guide by Daniel Nichanian at Bolts.com. Here’s the intro:
Two major elections are taking place this week, within days of one another. The United Kingdom votes on Thursday to elect its members of parliament for the first time since 2019. France then heads to the polls on Sunday for runoffs that will decide the make-up of its National Assembly.
The timing of both elections are major surprises. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called them in late May, while French President Emmanuel Macron shocked his country on June 9 by announcing that he was dissolving the National Assembly and organizing elections within a month.
Each election will decide who governs the country, using rules that often differ from U.S. norms. The modes of government vary, of course, but so do policies, gerrymandering, voter registration, voting in or after prison, voter ID, tabulations, and much more.
At Bolts, we’re always interested in varying models of democracy, and what lessons they teach us. And we suspected that our readers have many questions as well.
As part of our ongoing “Ask Bolts” series, we asked you to let us know what you’re thinking—and you delivered. We narrowed down your questions (with great difficulty) and had fun answering them below.
We’ve organized your questions under five themes—explore at your leisure:
Why is this happening right now?
How do these parliamentary elections even work?
Read on to learn how people vote in France and the U.K., why snap elections are a thing, what constraints exist on gerrymandering, and much more.
It looks pretty good for labor in the UK where people are sick of the Tories after 14 years and have deep regrets about Brexit. (Who could have predicted?) France is a lot more dicey with the far right poised to potentially take over and the best case probably being a hung parliament. Check out the Bolts piece for more info.