Lessons From In Situ Experiments during French Elections

In 2002 and 2007, during the French presidential elections, several experiments have taken place, designed to test the reaction of the public to new voting rules. What have we learned from them so far ? These experiments are of a rather original nature and raise several methodological issues with respect to their design and to the analysis of their results. In order to assert what can be learned and what cannot be learned, I will discuss the methodological issues at stake. I will in particular show that the conclusions to be derived from such experiments are very sensitive to some details of the protocol and also to some details of the voting rules under scrutiny