The COVID-19 Pandemic at the Polls
The first round of the last French local elections was held on March 15th, while the COVID-19 epidemic spreads in France. What was the impact of the health crisis on the mobilization during the 2020 local elections first round, where turnout reached a historical minimum? Has turnout at these elections been dependent on the local intensity of the epidemic? Did the crisis profoundly modify the effect of the usual socioeconomic factors of turnout? This article proposes to answer these questions using a longitudinal multilevel analysis of the abstention rate of the first rounds of the four last French local elections for cities over 3,500 inhabitants. Our results show that the effects of the COVID crisis on turnout are hardly dependent on the local intensity of the epidemic. If the demobilization increases everywhere on the territory, especially among cities where turnout is generally high, we observe significant variations in the abstention rate only for cities located in departments where the epidemic causes several deaths. We also observe an increase in the abstention for cities where proportions of people over 65 years of age and laborers are high, particularly when they are located at a close distance from the main epidemic clusters.