Résumé
Considering electoral results for two polling stations in Oran in the first part of the 20th century, it is possible to show that electoral competition rested on the relative mobilisation of Catholic and Jewish voters - Muslims being excluded from the right of suffrage. In a "racialised" colonial society, where religious (if not racial) membership is of primordial importance and is objectified by ethnic statistics, the French in Algeria became voters as Christians or as Jews. As such, the vote in this colonial situation did not progressively become an act of individual choice, as it did in France.