The aim of the article is to present results of the study done on voting papers in the National Archive in Kielce, that concerns the phenomenon and reasons of spoilt votes in the elections to voivodeship councils in 2014. 29 electoral districts that included: 10 districts from the Lesser Poland voivodeship, 7 from the Lublin voivodeship, 6 from Subcarpathian voivodeship and 6 from the Holy Cross voivodeship, were subjected to a de- tailed analysis. Apart from exact indication of the reasons for spoilt votes in elections to voivodeship councils themselves a detailed classification of those votes was done by dividing them into votes with excessive “x” signs, empty votes, votes with other signs than “x”, votes with multiple “x” signs and strikethroughs, protest votes and the so-called different votes. On this basis a description of regional differentiation of those votes was made. The whole study was done within the framework of the research project “Your vote, your choice”, realized by Stefan Batory Foundation in collaboration with the National Electoral Office, the National Election Commission and the Head Office of the State Archives.

11 stycznia 2018 r. Sejm RP uchwalił ustawę wprowadzającą wiele zmian do Kodeksu wyborczego. Najważniejsze zmiany dotyczyły administracji wyborczej, komisji wyborczych oraz praw wyborczych. Artykuł analizuje szczegółowe konsekwencje polityczne najważniejszych z tych reform. Autor dowodzi, że część z tych zmian, w szczególności dotyczących struktury Państwowej Komisji Wyborczej i administracji wyborczej jako takiej, może doprowadzić do kryzysu organizacyjnego i politycznego podczas wyborów samorządowych w 2018 r. Nie oznacza to jednak, że zmiany w obszarze prawa wyborczego nie są konieczne. Modyfikacje są potrzebą, ale wcześniej powinny być bardzo dokładnie przemyślane. System wyborczy jest bowiem jednym z najbardziej podanych na manipulacje instrumentów politycznych. Tymczasem uczciwa rywalizacja partyjna wymaga, aby reguły wyborcze nie były zmieniane zbyt pochopnie i często, zwłaszcza bezpośrednio przed wyborami.

Celem artykułu jest weryfikacja czynników decydujących o specyfice chwiejności wyborczej na poziomie samorządowym. Polityka lokalna kieruje się innymi prawami, odmiennymi kanałami dociera do wyborców, inaczej ich aktywizuje. W większej mierze dostępne są jej mechanizmy bliższe obywatelom, dotykające bezpośrednio ich codziennego życia. Artykuł podejmuje analizę uwarunkowań, które odgrywają istotną rolę w generowaniu modeli zachowań wyborczych na poziomie lokalnym. Przedstawiona refleksja obejmuje czynniki wynikające z drugorzędności wyborów samorządowych, szczególne motywacje wyborcze obywateli, tematy kampanijne oraz specyfikę tworzenia komitetów i generowania kandydatów niezwiązanych z partiami politycznymi. Refleksję poprzedza przedstawienie głównych zagadnień teoretycznych związanych z chwiejnością wyborczą.

Election Code – abuse of advertising during the election period

The issue presented in this thesis generally concerns equality before the law of all entities taking part in elections at various levels: voters and politicians. The term „equality” in article 32 paragraph 1 of the constitutions is commonly interpreted as a universal principle covering everyone, including natural and juridical persons, as well as institutions without a legal personality, regardless of other factors such as citizenship. In addition, the literature of constitutional law provides for equality before the law. The simplest, yet most accurate interpretation of the article is the principle of equality, that is the same, where the voice of every voter has the same strength. Therefore, can one be a candidate in elections and legally conduct advertisement for one’s own company at the same time? The problems presented concern both seasoned politicians as well as known public figures who are trying for local government positions, and candidates who are not yet public figures but conduct legal business activities. Inconsistent interpretation of the law compels citizens to legally notify the authorities about any believed offence and at the same time compels law enforcement to act on those notifications. Because of the facts mentioned above a person conducting business activitiess and advertising those business activities during an elections campaign can become a victim of persecution at hands of state institutions or a media witch-hunt.

Changes in Electoral Code according to local elections

In January 2018, the Sejm and Senate have passed hugely controversial law, which is supposed, according to its title, to „increase the participation of citizens in the process of electing, functioning and controlling certain public bodies”, amending inter alia Polish Electoral Code. This amendment destabilizes the electoral system without a clear or evident need short before the most hard and difficult electoral process – the local elections. The most controversial proposals concerned the changes in electoral administration and limiting the mayor (city president) to two terms in office. This law, may lead to politicization of the electoral administration, so there are risks of a loss the transparency of the election. The Author tries to present and evaluate most important changes resulting from new legislation.

The Principle of Proportionality in self-government electoral law

Taking advantage of the freedom to determine the electoral system for self-government bodies, it was largely decided to base it on the principle of proportionality. The proportionality of elections applies in the elections to municipal councils of communes with over 20,000 inhabitants, poviat councils and regional assemblies. As a result, this results in the dominant position of the principle of proportionality in shaping electoral systems in local government elections. The article analyzes the scope and form of the principle of proportionality of elections used in practice in elections to local self-government bodies, and also assessed the adequacy of political representation from the point of view of reflecting the distribution of votes cast by voters in the election and the deviation of this distribution from proportional representation.

The role of electoral commissioner in the process of dividing municipalities into electoral districts for municipality council elections according to Electoral Code

The Electoral Code of 2011 made a significant change in the existing rules for the conduct of elections of councilors to municipal councils introducing the principle that these elections in most municipalities in Poland will be held in single-member districts. This has caused the need for a new division of the municipalities into electoral districts, according the rules described in Electoral Code and in the guidelines of National Electoral Commission. The electoral commissioners are important in this process, because their task is to oversee the obey the electoral law by the local authorities. Their powers include i.e. the right to resolve complaints about municipal council resolution concerning the division of the municipality into electoral districts and the right to replace the municipal resolution by their own resolution if the local authority failed to perform its obligations on time or in a manner consistent with the law. The granting of these competencies to the electoral commissioners raises serious doubts as to whether the provisions of Electoral Code are not inconsistent with the Constitution of the Republic of Poland, and does not violate the supervisory powers of voivodes. The goal of this paper is to show the role of electoral commissioner in the process of dividing municipalities into electoral districts for municipality council elections according to Electoral Code, especially according to the line of the Constitutional Court expressed in the justification of the sentence in the case P 5/14.

The criminal background of the candidates in the mayor’s elections

General local elections, including the elections of the mayors’, are very important for the local democracy. In Poland, Electoral Code regulates the requirements for the candidates for this office. One of them is not being convicted. This requirement has changed over the years and it causes legal and practical problems. The Author analyzes legal solutions in this aspect and tries to find the answer, if the applicable rules are optimal.

Artykuł jest próbą odpowiedzi na pytanie o podobieństwo wyników wyborów do sejmików województw i następujących po nich wyborów do Sejmu RP. Trzy nakładające się na siebie cykle wyborcze w latach 2006–2015 pozwalają na bardziej systematyczną ocenę zjawiska nacjonalizacji regionalnych systemów politycznych. Po przedyskutowaniu różnych czynników, kształtujących odmienność wyników wyborów różnych szczebli, autorzy dokonują przeglądu literatury na temat nacjonalizacji systemów partyjnych. Omawiają również konstrukcję wskaźnika niepodobieństwa, używanego do badania nacjonalizacji – i jego dekompozycję pozwalającą na dokładniejsze wskazanie przyczyn odmienności wyników wyborów różnych szczebli. Badanie pokazuje, że w ciągu ostatniej dekady wzorce głosowania w wyborach regionalnych stawały się coraz bardziej odmienne od wzorców głosowania w wyborach do Sejmu. Najważniejszym czynnikiem wpływającym na zróżnicowanie wyników wyborów pozostają różnice w poparciu najbardziej stabilnych partii politycznych występujących na obu arenach rywalizacji.

The Evolution of the Basic Principles of Electoral Law in Elections to Constitutive Organs of the Units of Local Government and Parliamentary Elections in Poland Since 1989

 The scope of this article is to show the evolution of the basic principles of electoral law in elections to constitutive organs of the units of local government and parliamentary elections in Poland since 1989. In the article it is shown the constitutional and statutory regulations concerning basic principles of electoral law and the methods of determining the elections results applicable in Poland in past thirty years, from the Sejm and the Senat Electoral Acts of 1989, to the Electoral Code of 2011 (amended in 2018). According to the author of this article, this evolution of rules results in establish two models of regulations of the principles of electoral law and electoral system. The first model is applicable in elections to Sejm, to voivodeships councils, to county councils and to municipal councils in “big” municipalities (more than 20.000 citizens), the second model is applicable in elections to Senat and to municipal councils in “small” municipalities (less than 20.000 citizens).

District Electoral Commissions in Municipal Elections. Selected Issues in the Light of Practice of Local Election From 2018

The subject of the article is the analysis of the shape of district electoral commissions in municipal elections. The considerations contained in the paper were based on the binding legal regulations and the conclusions from the electoral practice of the municipal elections from 2018. The first part of the article discusses the significance of the electoral commissions for the electoral process. The second part of the study is devoted to the procedure for nominating candidates of the commissions. Subsequently, the entities responsible for appointment of the electoral commissions and the current rules for their functioning are discussed. Finally the article contains the conclusions with critical remarks about the current institutional shape and the mode of appointing the electoral commissions.

Artykuł stanowi próbę oceny skutków wprowadzenia zmian w systemie wyborczym organów jednostek samorządu terytorialnego wynikających z ustawy o zmianie niektórych ustaw w celu zwiększenia udziału obywateli w procesie wybierania, funkcjonowania i kontrolowania niektórych organów publicznych przyjętej w 2018 roku. Autorzy weryfikują hipotezy postawione przed zastosowaniem nowego systemu w praktyce, dotyczące wpływu zmian na proporcjonalność wyborów oraz możliwości uzyskania samodzielnej większości przez jedno ugrupowanie w organach stanowiących na poziomie gminy oraz ryzyka całkowitej dominacji jednego podmiotu w tym organie. Ocenie poddano również wpływ ograniczenia możliwości wykorzystywania biernego prawa wyborczego w wyborach do rad przez osoby kandydujące do organu wykonawczego w gminie.

Normative model for the verification of municipal elections’ validity – analysis based on the jurisprudence

The democratic electoral process implies the existence of mechanisms that verify the elections’ validity. In Poland, competence in this area has been entrusted to the courts. The assessment of the elections’ validity is based on the rules deriving from the binding provisions of law. The purpose of this article is to discuss the claim that the model for verifying the validity of local elections, which is shaped by the normative regulations and the jurisprudence, is characterised by a significant, perhaps excessive, degree of restrictiveness. The rigorous provisions determine the course of interpretation thereof. In practice, it means that the presumption of elections’ validity is enhanced. This analysis of the provisions of law and selected court judgments will allow for the formulation of final conclusions regarding the current model for verification of the municipal elections’ validity.

Parliamentary proposals for the implementation of direct starosts and province marshals elections

Out of the executive bodies of a local self-government, only the voits (mayors, presidents of cities) are elected in direct elections, whereas on the poviat and voivodeship level, we are dealing with collective management boards, the members of which are chosen indirectly by the council of the poviat, and by the voivodeship sejmik (a regional assembly). However, this issue is not discussedparticularly frequently, in parliamentary practice there have been attempts at introducing direct elections of starosts andvoivodeship marshals, which are justified by the need of strengthening the degree of social legitimization for such offices, as well as forharmonizing the regulations which are applicable on all local government levels. The goal of this article was to proceed with a critical analysis of the projects which have been submitted within this scope, as well as to answer the question: which conditions should be met so that the introduction of a fundamental change in the starost and voivodeship martial election procedure could be assessed positively.

(Dis)proportionality of the Polish Local Elections

Studies on disproportionality of proportional electoral systems proves prove that district magnitude is a key variable determining deviations from proportionality in election results. This paper will shows how district magnitude affects electoral disproportionality by employing empirical data from Polish local elections in 2018. The analysis will prove that Polish “proportional” electoral system to local councils leads to highly disproportional results.

This paper seeks to extend previous analyses of localism of candidates. To our knowledge, this is the first study of the ‘friends and neighbours’ voting (FNV) effect in Central and Eastern Europe employing the data of the candidate’s exact place of residence and using dispersion of votes between electoral precincts, as in Poland votes in each precinct are counted and published separately. The basic hypothesis of the paper was that the place of residence is a factor that significantly affects the spatial distribution of votes. Using spatial autocorrelation, we identify spatial clusters of votes for specific candidates. The conducted research indicates that the intensity of the FNV effect differs between candidates. This local bonus, which in fact is the FNV effect, is an attribute of selected candidates. It can be seen that a candidate’s locality is a more important attribute influencing voting results in certain city districts, while in others it is of limited importance. This mechanism may be explained to some extent by referring to the notion of motivation to win personal votes and party strategies of the selectors. Moreover, it was proved that the spatial distribution of votes of candidates who have their place of residence in the area from which they stand for election is significantly different from the distribution of votes among non-resident candidates.

Bilocation beneficiaries. Conditions and consequences of dual candidacy to different local government units

Dual candidacy to the local executive (the commune head, the mayor, the city president) and higher levels of local legislative (county councils, provincial assemblies) – which we call „bilocation” – was prohibited by the amendments to the Electoral Code adopted in 2018. The scale of this phenomenon nor its consequences have never been subject to systematic analysis before, although it appeared as early as 2002, along with direct elections of mayors. Our paper shows who – and with what success – used this possibility in the previous elections, in particular in 2014. Bilocations turned out to be common, though not dominant practice. Their political ramifications were significant, yet the pattern they form – complex and far from intuitive. Our analysis shows that excluding such a possibility did not remedy existing pathologies but could have contributed to the negative phenomena visible in the 2018 elections.

Impact of Changes in the Electoral System in 2018 on the Political Position of Presidential Parties in Municipalities over 20,000 Inhabitants

The aim of the paper is to assess the impact of changes introduced in 2018 to the electoral system used in elections of the councils of municipals over 20,000 inhabitants on the political position of the parties backing selected mayors and presidents of cities. This research perspective is justified by the special role of these groups resulting from the system of the commune, in particular the method of election and irrevocability of the executive, that is forced to try to gain control over the decision-making process in the council. The study used the Shapley-Shubik strength index as that reflects the actual strength of a political party in a collegiate body better than the number of seats or participation in a mandate set. The results of the survey confirmed that the analyzed change weakened the position of the presidential parties in most of the analyzed aspects.

On the Concept of the Electoral Treshold in Elections to Municipal Councils

The barrier clause is an institution of special importance in the context of the proportional system. The aim of this article is to present and evaluate the course of parliamentary work accompanying the transformation of the concept of the prohibition clause in the elections to municipal councils in 1990–2018. The research carried out on the basis of the formal-dogmatic method allows us to assume that the position of the dominant political forces on the application and level of the election threshold in local elections was characterized by considerable variability, showing connections with the lack of a clearly crystallized view on the shape of the electoral system in the strict sense of the organs constituting the basic level of local government.

On the Volatility of the Concept of Demographic Norm in Elections to Municipal Councils

The demographic norm is an institution of high importance from the point of view of the final election results and the detailed rules for conducting the electoral procedure. As an instrument separating majority and proportional electoral systems, it affects the procedure for submitting candidates, the structure of constituencies and the methods of mandates distribution. The aim of the study was to present and evaluate legislative projects regarding the demographic norm in 1990–2018 period. The conducted analysis leads to the conclusion that no unified concept of the demographic norm has been developed, and the cyclical changes within discussed institution are a consequence of the current interests of political parties.