Ordinary elections and constitutional arrangements[Elections ordinaires et aménagements constitutionnels]

It is widely held that voting in the course of ordinary elections has no significant influence on the constitutional regime or order of a country. At least three powerful arguments are provided in support of that view. First, to claim that, at the same time as they play, players can change the rules is, to say the least, logically puzzling. A second argument refers to the motivations and possibilities of voters : voters, this argument says, are not really interested in constitutional issues and, even if they were, are particularly ill-equiped to understand their implications. The third argument rests on the observation of what obtains in practice : as a matter of fact, constitutional issues are generally absent from electoral campaigns. After a discussion of what should be included in the constitutional order, regime or arrangements of a country, the paper endeavours to neutralize each of the three arguments and show that voters do exercise a very susbstantial influence on constitutional matters simply by the way of their vote in ordinary elections