On Thursday the Sejm voted not to accept the Senate’s resolution which opposed the amendment to the electoral law. The purpose of the amendment, proposed by PiS deputies, is to increase access to polling places for residents of small towns and to boost voter turnout.
That day, 235 deputies supported rejecting the Senate’s position, while 216 voted against it; there were no abstentions. With the Senate’s rejection, the amendment now moves to the president for confirmation.
The Sejm had given its approval to the amendment in late January. In late February the Senate adopted a resolution opposing the amendment. During Senate discussions, Krzysztof Kwiatkowski, the rapporteur for the joint Senate committees, noted that constitutional scholars had views on the amendment and that all opinions expressed were negative.
On Tuesday the Sejm’s Extraordinary Committee on Codification Changes spoke against the Senate resolution.
Among other things, the amendment to the Electoral Act aims to improve access to polling stations for residents of small towns. It requires mayors of rural or mixed rural-urban municipalities to offer free passenger transportation to voters on the electoral roll who must reach a permanent polling station within the municipality, if there is no daily public transport on election day or if the nearest stop of working public transport is more than 1.5 kilometers from the polling station.
Under the new rules, a voter with a heavy or moderate disability, and a voter who reaches age 60 by the election day, will be entitled to free transportation from home to the assigned polling station.
One aspect of the changes involves revising and redistributing existing voting districts. The justification states that the number of new district committees is expected to be about 6,000. The PKW website notes that the total number of districts, including foreign ones, exceeded 27.5 thousand in the 2019 parliamentary elections.
The justification emphasizes that under current rules a permanent voting circuit should cover 500 to 4,000 residents. After the changes, a circuit would cover about 200 residents, while the upper limit of 4,000 residents would remain unchanged.
This reform is expected to increase the number of polling stations and improve their accessibility.
Another aspect of the reform concerns the composition of district and regional electoral commissions. At present, the district electoral commission includes four to ten judges and the Electoral Commissioner serves as chair. The regional electoral commission consists of four judges with the Electoral Commissioner as chair. The changes replace judges with individuals who have completed higher legal training and who are responsible for ensuring the proper performance of these duties.
Registration of commission work
The amendment also introduces provisions that PiS had added in the Sejm to record the work of the constituency election commission by trustees using their own recording devices. Under the current Electoral Act, shop stewards can only record the committee’s activities up to the start of voting to verify that the ballot box is empty, closed, and sealed, and that the voter list and the required number of ballot papers are present. After voting closes, they may record the committee’s work from the time the polling station closes until the protocol is signed.
The amendment allows stewards to record the committee’s activities from the moment the committee begins its work until the protocol is signed, including the voting process itself.
The amendment also creates a Central Electoral Register to determine voter numbers, compile electoral lists and eligibility for participation in referendums, and verify voting rights.
Access to the Central Register will be granted to Voits, NEC and election commissioners through the National Electoral Office, the Minister of Information Technology, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and consuls. The register will be maintained by the Minister of Information Technology and will be funded through 2031 with a total budget of up to PLN 91.72 million, distributed across years including 2022 to 2025 and beyond as planned.
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mly/PAP
Source: wPolityce