Polish prosecutors reveal ballot errors in presidential election, say no impact on result

Keep our news free from ads and paywalls by making a donation to support our work!

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Prosecutors have uncovered discrepancies in the official results of Poland’s presidential election, with over 1,500 votes incorrectly attributed to the winning candidate, opposition-backed Karol Nawrocki.

“Maths shows that this difference would not change the election results,” said Przemysław Nowak, spokesman for the national prosecutor’s office, Poland’s top prosecutorial authority, which carried out the review of 250 polling stations identified as having a high or very high probability of error.

According to the country’s State Electoral Commission (PKW), Nawrocki won the second round with a lead of nearly 370,000 votes over his government-aligned rival Rafał Trzaskowski.

The findings are part of an ongoing investigation by prosecutors into possible vote-counting irregularities during the second round of the presidential election, held on 1 June. Official results showed that Nawrocki won by a small margin with about 50.9% of the vote against 49.1% for Trzaskowski.

Shortly after the election, Polish media reported potential irregularities in the count at some polling stations. These included instances where votes appeared to be attributed to the wrong candidate.

In response, the national prosecutor’s office formed a team in late June to investigate. Using a statistical model developed by a political scientist at the University of Warsaw, 145 polling stations were selected for review due to a “very high” risk of error and 104 due to a “high” risk of error. One further station was added based on a separate electoral complaint.

An inspection of ballots revealed that in 166 of the 250 stations (66%), no discrepancies were found between the physical ballot count and the official results.

However, inconsistencies were identified in 84 polling stations (34%). In 42 stations, at least some votes for Trzaskowski were counted as votes for Nawrocki, while in 34 the reverse occurred. In 16 of those 76 stations, all votes were assigned to the wrong candidates.

In eight polling stations, discrepancies were limited to isolated cases of counting valid ballots as invalid,.

The review found that Nawrocki, the winning candidate, received 1,538 more votes than he should have, while Trzaskowski, received 1,541 fewer, based on the aforementioned ballot inspections.

“We are talking about a difference of 1,500 votes after examining all 250 polling stations that were considered to be at the highest risk of statistical anomalies,” Nowak said.

Prosecutors will now determine the causes of these discrepancies and establish whether they resulted from systemic problems or human error.

Nowak noted that the results of the investigation will not change the outcome of the election, which was already confirmed by the Supreme Court in early July. However, they may provide a basis for further legal action if it turns out that the discrepancies were the result of deliberate actions by polling station staff.

The Supreme Court chamber tasked with validating election results is itself not recognised by Poland’s ruling coalition and European courts due to being staffed by judges illegitimately appointed under the former Law and Justice (PiS) administration, which the government noted when publishing the court’s resolution confirming the result.

Nawrocki, who was supported by PiS in the election, will replace the current president, Andrzej Duda, also a PiS ally, on 6 August.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Marcin Stepien / Agencja Wyborcza

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.