– Firstly, it concerns the activities of the individual regional electoral commissions, which are over 32,000, so it is by no means possible that 1 of them made a mistake. On the another hand, it is improbable that these errors are intended and massive, due to the fact that it is crucial to construct the composition of the individual regional electoral commissions and to execute electoral tasks by committees – says Prof. Jacek Zalesny, a constitutionalist from the University of Warsaw.
Irregularities in the presidential election
We asked him about reports from the last fewer days that concern irregularities in counting the votes cast in the presidential election. On June 6, it was reported that there was a mistake in counting the votes in election commission No. 13 in Minsk Mazowiecki. The results of Rafał Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki were accidentally replaced, as reported by his MA.
These are not the only reports of errors in counting after the second circular – there were besides irregularities in favour of the president of Warsaw. But any politicians compose about "falsified elections", even though there is no evidence. What can PKW do in this situation? And do speculations about recalculating the votes seem reasonable at all?
As Prof. Zalesny explains, the regional electoral commissions consist mainly of representatives of individual electoral committees, in this case candidates for the office of President.
– This composition is simply a very pluralistic and civic composition at the starting point. The committee consists of 7 to 13 people (depending on the size of the voting circuit), adequate to prevent collusion between them or to make mistakes from being tired. Moreover, there are men of trust who besides bear in head how the members of the electoral commission carry out their duties – our interlocutor explains.
The members of the regional electoral commissions shall carry out public acts and shall so be liable to criminal proceedings. "This is another premise that makes it improbable that there will be errors in committees. Whenever it is likely that, for example, there may have been a declaration of untruth in the voting protocol, the prosecution is obliged to initiate criminal proceedings on its own. For this, he is facing respective years of imprisonment – adds Prof. Zaleśny.
The constitutionalist asked about the way votes are counted draws attention to the procedure for determining the results in the voting circuit. “The activities of the peripheral electoral commission in determining the results of the vote in the circuit are carried out jointly by all current members of the committee,” he emphasises.
He adds: – They cannot execute them either in groups of members or individually. The minutes of the vote shall be signed by all persons in the peripheral electoral commission present in its preparation. Thus, at this phase of the committee's work, there is no anticipation that the activities will be carried out by individual committee members. In case of disagreement, the members of the peripheral committee have the right to submit comments to the minutes indicating a circumstantial allegation.
– If it were to happen that, according to the ultimate Court, the errors that occurred in determining the consequence of the vote could make the consequence of the election not reflect the consequence of the vote of millions of Poles, namely that in the case of the last presidential election the errors concern respective 100 1000 votes, then the ultimate Court declares the nullity of the election and orders the execution of certain actions – whether at the level of voting or at the level of recalculation of votes – convinces Zalesny.
"Petation of up to 30 million Poles does not substance to PKW"
As she points out, we have had situations in the past erstwhile thousands of electoral protests have been brought in, for example, after the 1995 presidential election, almost 600 000 were submitted.
– It doesn't substance what the number of protests is. It is crucial that the violations that may have occurred affect the result of the vote. In this case, it should be pointed out at the level of the ultimate Court that the wave of violations of the law is so large that there are hundreds of thousands of wrongly accounted votes. This means that it is de facto likely that Poles voted for individual another than the 1 who was declared the winner of the election," says the constitutionalist.
The situation will most likely not change the loud initiative we have already written about on the subject. It's about petitioning PKW to recalculate the votes. More than 250,000 people signed it online.
– Even if 30 million Poles signed the petition, it does not substance to PKW. For PKW, it is only crucial that the votes given are counted correctly, as it is served by its subordinate electoral apparatus. That is, whether the consequence of the vote announced by the State Electoral Commission is the consequence that actually took place – explains Prof. Zaleśny.
