A court in Warsaw has ruled that Poland’s digitisation ministry unlawfully transferred the personal data of Polish voters to the post office as part of failed efforts to organise last year’s presidential election by post amid the pandemic.
The ministry initiated preparations despite the relevant legislation allowing the elections to take place not yet having become law. In a separate recent case, the prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, was found by a court to have “grossly violated” the law by ordering preparations for the elections.
Morawiecki is appealing against that ruling, and the digitisation ministry can do the same regarding the latest judgement.
The presidential election scheduled for 10 May last year was mired in controversy, as the government pushed ahead with preparations amid the escalating coronavirus pandemic.
The government argued that it had a constitutional obligation to organise the vote. But critics claimed that the national-conservative ruling party, Law and Justice (PiS), simply had a political interest in holding elections as early as possible, which would give its candidate, incumbent president Andrzej Duda, a better chance of winning.
Legislation allowing the election to be organised was delayed by the opposition-controlled Senate until two days before the scheduled vote. With one of PiS’s junior coalition partners also opposing the postal election, a last-minute political deal saw the idea scrapped, meaning the election was declared void.
However, in the meantime the government had begun preparations, including printing and preparing to post ballot papers, despite the legislation authorising them to do so not having been passed.
This included, on 22 April, the digitisation ministry transferring to the state postal service the personal information – including ID numbers (PESEL), names, surnames and addresses – of all Poles eligible to vote in the elections.
At the time, a number of local authorities had refused requests to hand over such data, saying that they were illegal. Poland’s commissioner for human rights, Adam Bodnar, argued that the ministry’s actions violated the constitution and lodged a case with Warsaw’s provincial administrative court.
In response to the accusations, the then digitisation minister, Marek Zagórski, explained that he had received a request from the postal office for the personal data and was acting on the basis of the government’s emergency Covid act.
The digitisation ministry explained that the data was saved on secure CDs, which were handed over to verified representatives of the postal service through one channel, and passwords through another.
However, in a ruling last month – which has only now been revealed – the court agreed with Bodnar and found that the ministry acted unlawfully, reports Money.pl. The decision is, however, not final and can be appealed.
Preparations for the abandoned postal elections cost at least 70 million zloty (€15 million), according to leaked invoices. In January this year, the post office was awarded 53 million zloty of state compensation for the expenses it incurred, with a further 3 million zloty going to the Polish Security Printing Works (PWPW), which printed ballots.
Opposition politicians, legal figures, the electoral commission and international organisations strongly criticised the government’s actions in attempting to organise a postal vote at the last minute and amid lockdown during the first wave of the pandemic.
After plans for the May election were abandoned, the vote was eventually held in the summer, with a first round in late June and second in early July. Duda emerged victorious, defeating opposition candidate Rafał Trzaskowski in a run-off.
Main image credit: tadekk/Flickr (under CC BY 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
