The Principle of Secret Voting in the Constitution of the Republic of Poland and the Possibility of Implementing Popular Voting with the Use of E-voting Based on Blockchain Technology

The principle of secret voting is one of the basic elements of the Polish electoral system. Its character does not raise many doubts in the literature on the subject. It seems, however, that secrecy of voting may be one of the main challenges in the context of plans to implement Internet voting in universal suffrage. Many scientists place their hope in blockchain. It is a technology that ensures high security. On the basis of this article, I consider whether blockchain – due to its characteristics – can be used in Poland as a technology enabling voting via the Internet. I pay particular attention to the principle of secret voting, which may be difficult to implement with the use of this solution.

The subject of this paper is to discuss the new institutions of Polish electoral criminal law, which are the penal provisions from 2018 added to the Electoral Code. These institutions, in addition to the norms guaranteeing the fairness of the electoral process and, at the same time, contributing to ensuring the fairness of elections resulting from international documents, national law, jurisprudence and views of the doctrine. The author discusses the features of a new type of prohibited act resulting from the amendment to the Electoral Code.

October 15, 2023 – a celebration or failure of direct democracy?

This publication aims to present the most important problems that occurred in connection with the referendum, which, despite numerous voices of opposition, took place on October 15, 2023. It was also the day on which elections to the Sejm and Senate were to be held. Therefore, the authors decided not to refer to or comment on the extensive discussion of doctrinal issues related to the referendum, but to address only the practical dimension of the vote held in order to formulate de lege lata conclusions. The subject of the analysis was the issue of the validity and binding nature of the referendum, as well as the issue of the refusal of the voter to collect the referendum ballot in connection with the implementation of the principle of secrecy of the vote, which provokes many controversial assessments.