Patents on the soles of your shoes...: Terminology - Mini bilingual glossary for the 2020 US presidential elections

Copyright Françoise Herrmann

Bilingual English<>French Election terminology was compiled while waiting for the 2020 US Presidential election suspense to subside, and for the election to be called, considering the biggest turnout ever, estimated at 66.9%, (Le Monde, 4 Nov. 2020).

Besides contesting the actual results of the vote, at issue is the record number of mail-in-votes, recommended as a measure for preventing further pandemic spread. States have different procedures for counting election day in-person votes, mail-in votes, and early votes, all of which impact the results of the vote, post-election day.

In regards to the potential for mail-in voting fraud, mail-in voting (also called absentee voting) dates back to soldiers during the Civil War. A system that has gradually expanded to include:voters that were not in the military, initially requiring an excuse for not voting in person to obtain an absentee ballot, to absentee voting without an excuse, to all-mail voting options, permanent automatic mail-in ballot systems in five states Hawaii, Colorado, Oregon, Utah and Washington, and temporary automatic mail-in ballot systems in 22 states, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to other mail-in voting options nationwide that might involve having to request an absentee ballot (Waxman, 2020; Ballotpedia). In fact, election experts Charles Stewart III (MIT) and Amber McReynolds (U. of Illinois) found 0,00006% fraud out of 250 million votes cast in the US in the past 20 years. Their findings were based on an analysis of the Heritage Foundation's Voting Fraud Database, where they examined a total of 1200 voting fraud cases, 204 of them involving fraudulent use of absentee ballots, resulting in 143 criminal charges, in 20 years. Findings that prompted both scholars to conclude that "Vote fraud in the United States is exceedingly rare, with mailed ballots and otherwise." (MIT SCHASS, 2020)

Precedence in presidential election disputes, such as the Bush v. Gore electoral dispute on recounting Florida votes, in the year 2000, was prompted by a different issue, concerning machines having missed votes (referenced as undervotes). The US Supreme Court [Bush v. Gore 531 U.S. 98 (2000)] granted a stay on recounting votes (by hand) (7:2), following an order to manually recount votes by the Florida Supreme Court, thereby reiterating the Bush victory.

Incidentally, as some people might recall, the star election terminology item, arising in 2000 within the Florida context of recounting votes, was a small piece of paper called the "chad" (translated as "confetti" in French). A "chad" is the little piece of paper that creates a hole when a voting card is punched, using Votomatic-style punched ballots. Improperly torn chads, called "hanging chads", or "swinging chads" (see Ballot Card image for variations), gave much grief to those folks responsible for then manually recounting votes in Florida, in 2000 during an interim period of time, post-election day and prior to the US Supreme Court decision.

English	Français
incumbent	candidat au pouvoir, sortant, titulaire
challenger	candidat de l’opposition, opposant, adversaire
ballot	le scrutin
poll (station/booth)	les urnes
to flip balance of power	faire basculer l’équilibre du pouvoir
Electoral College	Collège électoral
battleground State	État champs de bataille
swing/flip state	État-pivot, qui oscille, État-bascule, État disputé
Bellwether state	État-baromètre (vote tjrs pour le vainqueur)
to count (votes)	dépouillement des votes, dépouiller (vb.)
to have a lead	mener (vb.)
concession call/speech	appel/discours de concession/ de défaite
designated survivor	successeur désigné
gerrymandering	charcutage électoral
landslide	victoire écrasante
PAC ( Political Action Committee)	comité de soutien
winners	les vainqueurs
mail-in votes	votes par correspondance
to win an election	remporter (vb.) les élections
to call the election	déclarer le vainqueur