More than two centuries have passed since the French Revolution — yet voter turnout in the democratic country has seen better days. Last summer, when regional elections were held across France, almost nine out of 10 young eligible voters stayed at home.  The proportion of 18-to-25-year-olds who abstained hit an all-time low of 87%.

Local and regional elections are not the only ballots to experience this trend. A historically low turnout was also logged by the French Interior Ministry at the last parliamentary election in June 2017. Back then, less than half of the electorate took part in the first round of voting to elect lawmakers to the National Assembly.

Political parties have struggled to put the frisson back into voting. Now, the dating app Tinder has been recruited to help stop the low turnout rate from getting worse. The French non-governmental organization "A Vote" (Voted) has paired up with the dating app in a bid to overcome the inhibitions stopping many young people from heading to the polls.

Obsolete electoral registers

Some 7.6 million French people were incorrectly registered in polling lists at the last presidential vote in 2017. For example, many addresses were out-of-date. This meant that many voters could not cast their ballots in their current places of residence — a problem that affects people under 30 most. Many have long since moved out of their parental homes, but they remain listed on electoral registers in their home towns and tied to particular polling stations there. Unlike Germany, postal votes are not possible in France.

In the weeks to come, Tinder aims to persuade millions of users in France to think about their electoral entries en passant. So when you are swiping through dating profiles, a series of four cards will pop up instead of the next photo, telling you: "If you can date down your street… You can vote down your street" and informing you of the deadline to update your electoral records.

Looking for: A political match

These cards are linked with the NGO's homepage, which lists practical tips and information explaining the electoral rolls. "False entries on the polling lists are an obstacle to voting that we would like to overcome," says Dorian Dreuil, co-founder of "A Vote."

At the start of March, when the lists of candidates seeking election are closed and the deadline for alterations to the electoral register has passed, Tinder and "A Vote" will switch to the second — hot — phase of their campaign.

In the weeks running up to the election, the candidates will take center stage rather than the electoral roll. Cards will pop up on the dating app with the message: "Your vote counts. Don't ghost your convictions!" The system for proxy voting is also explained on the "A Vote" home page. All citizens are permitted to nominate a person whom they trust to vote on their behalf — one of their parents for example. Even if your entry in the electoral register is out-of-date, you can vote without having to travel home.

Tinder Spokesman Benjamin Puygrenier is optimistic about the campaign's chance for success. "From our user data we can see there is a growing interest in politics. It is a big topic among young people. The evidence for that is that the word ‘politics' has been used more and more frequently over the last 12 months in our members' biographies. The figure is up by 59%," says Puygrenier.

Tinder also needs soulmates

While interest in who will become the next president exists, there may be different results in practice: A recent study claims that 59% of eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 30 are flirting with the idea of abstaining in the first round of voting on April 10. 

Campaigns like this are not the first rodeo for Tinder nor for A vote. The dating app has already organized similar election drives in the US, UK, Brazil and Germany. The French organization has partnered with Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook. A chatbot on WhatsApp will also inform people about voter registration lists in a campaign similar to that on Tinder.

Tinder, "A Vote" and Meta are eager to avoid becoming bedfellows of any political party. When the youth wing of French President Emmanuel Macron's party recently set out to launch an electoral roll campaign on Tinder, the company reacted swiftly and threatened to delete the accounts in question. 

This article was originally written in German.