It is the most frightening sentence at a polling station: your name is not here. It is also the most preventable. The decree builds two dates, one publication and one tribunal specifically around this problem, and almost all of the remedy sits before election day, not on it. Here is the whole map, including the part where the honest answer is that it is too late.
In short
Registration for this cycle closes on 13 October 2026, and after the legal cut-off the general electoral list is definitive and no update is possible (decree, art. 61). The lists are posted at the communal and departmental electoral offices and on the CEP's website on 13 November 2026, thirty days before the vote (arts. 62 and 71). That window between the two dates is when a mistake can still be fixed: challenges about a voter's inscription or radiation are heard by the BCEC of your commune, which decides within 24 hours, with an appeal to the BCED (arts. 306, 315 and 317). On election day itself the bureau may only admit you if your name is on its attendance list (art. 235). Check in November, not in December.
Three different problems that look identical
“My name isn't on the list” describes three situations with three different answers. Work out which one is yours before you do anything else.
- You never registered, or you registered after the cut-off. This is the one with no day-of remedy.
- You did register, but the list is wrong, a material error, or your name was struck off. This one has a tribunal and a 24-hour clock.
- You are at the wrong place. Your name is on a list, just not on this bureau's list, or not at this centre. This one is a navigation problem, not a legal one.
The two dates that decide everything
Art. 61 is the hinge of the whole system: every entry on the General Electoral List is made at the latest sixty days before the vote, and past that deadline the list is definitive and no update is possible. The CEP's calendar sets voter registration for this cycle from 20 July to 13 October 2026.
Then the list becomes visible. Under art. 62 the electoral lists are sent to the departmental and communal electoral offices to be made public and posted at least thirty days before the vote, and art. 71 adds that the CEP publishes the updated list, after correction of material errors and after entries and removals, by posting at those offices and on its website. The calendar puts that publication on 13 November 2026.
Between 13 November and 13 December you have thirty days to look, and to act if what you see is wrong. That month is the entire point of the design.
Check before, not on the day
The register is built from the ONI's civil-registry database (art. 57), and it is broken down into a general list and then lists by commune, by communal section, by voting centre and by voting bureau (art. 69). The bureau-level list is what actually decides which room you walk into, it is sent to the centres and bureaux, and an electronic version is available on the CEP's website (art. 70).
So there are three places to look, and none of them requires waiting until December: the posted lists at your BEC or BED, the CEP's website, and the CEP's official list of registration and voting centres for the address itself. Read: Finding your voting centre (CIV)
If the list is wrong: the BCEC route
This is the part almost nobody knows. Challenges relating to the inscription or the radiation of a voter on the electoral list of the commune concerned are heard by the Bureau du Contentieux Électoral Communal (BCEC), the first of the three electoral tribunals (art. 306).
The procedure is deliberately fast, because it has to be.
- The registry of the tribunal gives the parties a certified copy of the case papers (art. 313).
- Communications may be made by registered letter with acknowledgement, by bailiff's act, by email, or by any other means recognised by law (art. 314).
- The decision is rendered within twenty-four hours of the papers being placed before the BCEC for deliberation (art. 315).
- A BCEC decision can be appealed to the BCED, the departmental tribunal. A BCED decision on such an appeal is final, except where electoral law has been misinterpreted or misapplied (art. 317).
The same procedure is used for complaints about obstruction of the electoral campaign (art. 316), which tells you how the decree ranks this: a voter wrongly off the list is treated as seriously as a campaign being blocked. Read: How results can be contested
If someone tries to have you struck off
Radiation is not something that can happen to you quietly. Art. 310 provides that a voter whose removal from the list is requested must be informed by the director of the electoral register within at least forty-eight hours of the request being filed, and is invited to present observations before the BCEC. If the voter succeeds, their inscription on the register is maintained.
Removals that happen automatically are narrow and judicial. A final conviction to an afflictive or infamous penalty is taken into account only if it is notified to the CEP at the latest sixty days before the vote (art. 66), prosecutors transmit those lists through the Ministry of Justice within fifteen days of a judgment becoming final (art. 67), and civil registrars send the list of deaths every month (art. 68). Nothing in there allows a party, a neighbour or an employer to have your name taken off.
What actually happens at the table
On the day, before admitting you to vote, the president or another member of the bureau verifies three things: that you have not already voted, that you are carrying your national ID card, and that you are on the bureau's attendance list. Your name and number are then read aloud (art. 235). Since the modifying decree of 2 July 2026, the secretary also writes your NINU on the attendance list and takes your signature or fingerprint; where no fingerprint can be taken, a procès-verbal records the fact (art. 235.1).
Read art. 235 carefully and you will see why the day-of remedy is so thin. Being on the list is one of the three conditions the bureau is required to check. The three students in that room have no power to add you to it; their instruction is to verify, not to decide. Read: Who actually runs the election
One useful protection does apply on the day: if you have been identified and you are still queuing at the entrance at four o'clock in the afternoon, you are admitted to vote (art. 239). Arriving late is survivable. Not being on the list is not.
If you moved house
Art. 64 puts the duty on you and makes it simple: any citizen who changes domicile presents themselves at the registration centre corresponding to their new domicile, with a valid national ID card or the ONI attestation carrying the NINU and photograph, so that the electoral lists can be updated.
The consequence is the one people forget. The centre where you register is the centre where you will vote. If you moved and did nothing, your name is not missing, it is sitting on a list in the commune you left. Read: Registering and the national ID card
If you never registered in time
We are not going to soften this. Art. 61 says the list is definitive after the cut-off and that no update is possible. There is no exceptional procedure in the decree, no same-day registration, and no discretion given to a bureau to admit an unregistered voter. Registration is also compulsory for exercising the right to vote in the first place (art. 59.1), and being on the register is one of the five conditions of art. 55.
Which is exactly why this article exists in August. Registration for 13 December is open now and closes on 13 October 2026. If you have never registered, or you are not sure, the useful action is not to read further, it is to go to a CIV with your valid CIN, or with the ONI attestation carrying your NINU and photo, and register in person (art. 59).
What it changes in your daily life
Almost everything about this problem is decided in two ordinary months. Register before 13 October. Look at the posted list, or the CEP's site, after 13 November. If your name is missing or wrong, take it to the BEC of your commune straight away, because the tribunal that fixes it decides in twenty-four hours and there are only thirty days in which to use it.
Do that, and the sentence you never want to hear cannot be said to you. Skip it, and on 13 December there will be three students at a table who are legally unable to help, however much they want to.