The article analyses the potential impact of Brexit and the new legal framework for European statistics in demography on the formal voting power of Poland in the Council of the European Union, in the case of adopting decisions by the qualified majority of votes. The leading hypothesis of the paper assumes that the fact of leaving the European Union by Great Britain and the new method of determining the population of EU Member States for the purposes of making decisions in the Council of the European Union leads to another transfer of formal voting power to the benefit of countries with the largest populations, as well as reduces the ability of Poland to build strictly minimally blocking coalitions, in particular in opposition to the coalition being formed by France and Germany or the so-called “Trio of Ventotene”.

The Impact of the Basis for the Distribution of Seats Between Constituencies on the Implementation of the Material Aspect of the Principle of Electoral Equality in the Elections of the Sejm of the Republic of Poland Since 2015

The aim of the paper is to examine the impact of the choice of the parameter constituting the basis for the distribution of seats between constituencies on the preservation of the material aspect of the principle of equality in the elections of the Sejm. A number of simulations were carried out to indicate whether a change would result in a higher degree of implementation of the aforementioned principle. The study makes it possible to present proposals for changes of the electoral system.

Analysis Of The Structure Of Blocking As An Alternative To The Application Of The Power Index Approach

The article presents the analysis of structure of blocking, an original research technique based on the voting games theory, but departing from the assumption that all possible coalitions are equally likely. The analysis is focused on the players’ ability to build minimal blocking coalitions, and thus on the structure of blocking for voting game. Blocking coalition is understood as collective veto player, which have the right, under voting rule, to block change of the status quo. The proposed research technique provides an alternative for the application of the power index approach to the voting bodies such as the Council of the European Union. Hence, the aim of this work is to fill methodological gap in the research on the voting systems.

The Political Consequences of Maladjustment of the Number of Mandates in Electoral Districts with Demographic Changes in the Polish Parliamentary Elections 2023

The subject of analysis in this article is the allocation of mandates among electoral districts in the elections to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland 2023 and its political consequences. According to the principle of electoral equality in material aspect, the number of voters per mandate in individual electoral districts should be the same or as close as possible. The National Electoral Commission has pointed out that the current division into electoral districts specified in the annexes to the Electoral Code violates this principle. Shifting mandates between electoral districts would alter the balance of political power in the parliament.