Abstract
This article presents the results of a study leaded in Montpellier (France) during three “two-rounds” local elections organized between March 2014 and December 2015. With an exhaustive exam of the voting lists of each voting stations of the city, we have measured the turnover rate for each of them, i.e. the rate of voters who only have participated in one round during an election. We can establish that the turnover rate for these local elections varies between 13.5% and 16.5% of the global electorate. Finally, these results are a different way to interpret the voting turnout. Moreover, including these results in several Principal Components Analysis constructed with electoral and census data relied on the voting station scale, we are able to give a better understanding of the electoral results and of the transfer of votes from one candidate to another during each elections. The renewal of the electorate, because it implies strong mobilisation and de-mobilisation flows, appears to be one of the key factors of an election, determined both by sociological variables and the structure of the political offer.