French National Front defeated after all

This points to, I think, a good thing about the French electoral process: it's a two-round system.

Last week, these were the headlines:

Le Pen Scores Historic Victory in France's Regional Elections
Is France going fascist? Extreme-right National Front is now the most popular party

As you can see, some people were very alarmed by this.

I was aware of who Marine Le Pen is and the National Front, but as I am not French I don't follow French politics too closely, so I didn't realize that voters would have a second chance. In America voters only get one chance, there's no "first round" of voting. In the second round however, voter turnout increased a lot and the National Front was soundly defeated:

French far-right faces unexpected defeat after turnout soars

Quote:

France's far-right National Front performed unexpectedly poorly in Sunday's regional elections, securing control of exactly zero regions. In the first round just one week ago, they finished in first place in six out of 12 regions and were expected to prevail in second round voting in at least two, and perhaps as many as four, regions. The unexpected defeat came in the context of soaring turnout. Just 48 percent of eligible voters cast ballots last week, but faced with predictions of National Front victory, that surged to 59 percent today.

Quote:

What we see this weekend, however, is that the National Front simply remains toxic to most French voters. Demoralization with the mainstream parties can put it in first place, but when the Front threatens to actually win people show up and vote.

I guess this shows the danger if voters get apathetic. If mainstream voters forget to show up on election day, the far-right could win. I hope that doesn't happen on election day in the USA, because we only have one chance to get it right.

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1QFCanI