Election Sock Shock
Updated : Apr 24, 2009
It wasn’t quiet election shocker but election sock-er in France recently.
France's highest court annulled the 2008 election of a mayor in the southern town of Perpignan on Thursday, after the head of a polling station tried to change the result by smuggling in ballots in his socks. Skip related content
When the votes for the election were counted in March last year, polling station head Georges Garcia was caught with ballots supporting Jean-Paul Alduy, a member of France's ruling UMP party, in his pockets and socks.
Garcia was then caught again trying to get rid of envelopes containing ballots.
The Council of State, France's highest court, confirmed a lower court ruling that annulled the vote. The election will be held again at a date to be fixed.
"The election results cannot be seen as genuine considering the seriousness of the fraudulent act and the role of the persons concerned," the court said.
Alduy won by 574 votes out of 41,938 ballots cast. The polling station in question gathered 825 ballots.
"It's not possible to establish for sure that without the fraud the candidate would have won," the court said.
