la-rainette:

Voting is not always fun – but then nobody said it would be. How do you vote for someone you genuinely DON’T want to see in office, you wonder. Well, let me tell you how it goes: you get up, you get dressed, you check your ID. You grit your teeth and make your way to the polling station. You don’t smile to anyone as you stand in line, you don’t look left or right, you try to ignore the fact that your stomach is all tied up in knots. You imagine that people’s faces around you are as tense yours must be. 

You think about how you swore never to vote for this person, years ago.

And then you remind yourself that you may not be voting for the person you really wanted to vote for today, but you HAVE to vote, because you need to speak up and speak against.  Against racism. Against fascism. Against extreme nationalism. And so you vote. You throw your little envelope into the big box, and you feel the grim satisfaction of a dirty job well done. Because you will not let this happen to your country. 

This is what happened to me in the French elections of 2002.  

In France, we have a two-round system; the first round results determine the two candidates who be run in the second round. The candidates who get the most votes in the first round run against each other in the second round. 

Only the two candidates with the most votes make it through. There is no bronze medal. 

Until 2002, nobody cared that much about the first round. We always had one socialist candidate and one conservative candidate make it to the second round, so nobody every bothered to make polls for the first round, all the polls were about the second round and the two most likely candidates to make it through: socialist Lionel Jospin and conservative Jacques Chirac, Everybody expected them in the second round.  

I liked Jospin, I had high hopes for him. I still think he would have been a good president, he isn’t very charismatic but he is down-to-earth and serious and honest – at least I like to think that he is. He would have had his chances. I was looking forward to voting for him. 

He never made it to the second round. 

I still remember the shock I felt when they announced, on national TV, that the two candidates in the second round were Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the far-right Front National. I felt, quite literally, sick to my stomach – the next day I woke up with a hangover. 

And of course, two weeks later, I voted for Chirac, against Le Pen. I voted without enthusiasm, but I did it. 

In the first round, the Front National got about 20% of the votes; it was enough to defeat the socialist candidate (I think he got 18%) because the left-wing votes were split between too many small candidates. In the second round, the Front National got about 20% of the votes. Chirac won with an overwhelming 80% of the votes. That was pretty unheard of. 

This also taught us two things: 

– always, ALWAYS vote strategically. I know I do, and I am not the only one: small candidates who used to get an honorable number of votes in the first round barely register now. People vote for the person they want to see in the second round, period. 

– the people who vote for the Front National, these people whose vote is driven by fear and hate – they fucking get up and show up and VOTE every freaking time. So we need to get up and vote too, every time, if we want to keep them at bay, and we do. (I swear to you the difference is obvious –  the lineups to vote at the French Consulate in Toronto are humongous). 

We have elections coming up next year, and these will be my Froglet’s first elections – she turns 18 in March and the French elections are held in May. She will be voting with us, here in Toronto, at the French consulate. Now, the socialist government is so unpopular in France right now that I suspect the socialists may not make it to the second round. Also, the Front National has gained a lot of popularity in the past few years (something I am extremely scared of) and some respectability with its new leader. 

I wish my Froglet could vote with a smile on her face and hope in her heart, but I suspect that she may have to vote to block the Front National – with a grim face and through gritted teeth. But you gotta do what you gotta do. 

If I were a citizen of your country I could vote for Hillary in a heartbeat – and not just against her opponent. I actually believe she’ll be a good president. I know many of you don’t feel that way but just – please, take the time to consider the alternative. I know you may be tempted to vote third party, but I don’t think you can afford that. 

And who knows? You might be pleasantly surprised in retrospect. After all, Chirac was a respectable president. He was even, in one memorable occasion, a surprisingly awesome president. 

You never know.