The ultimate Court has decided. Poles will never know the exact results of the elections?

The situation after the presidential election is becoming more and more complicated. Although the ultimate Court in a peculiar resolution confirmed the validity of Karol Nawrocki's election as president, at the same time opened the Pandora's box, which may forever prevent knowing the exact, numerical result of the vote. The resolution simply states that Nawrocki has obtained "more votes", but does not order the authoritative data of the State Election Commission to be corrected, which, as has already been known, are subject to serious errors. This means that Poland is in an unprecedented situation: we have a legally elected president, but the authoritative consequence of his victory, published in the diary of Laws, is false. This raises fundamental questions about the transparency of the electoral process and trust in state institutions. The calculation of the actual number of votes cast for each candidate may prove to be an impossible mission.

Official results full of mistakes. PKW admits mistakes

According to the announcement of the State Election Commission, published on 2 June in the authoritative diary of the Laws, the results of the second circular of elections were as follows: Karol Nawrocki won 10,606,877 votesand his counter-candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski, 10 237 286 votes. However, these figures were called into question very rapidly by the members of the regional electoral commissions themselves. There were signs of gross errors in the protocols.

It turned out that in many places in the country there was a curiosity exchange of results attributed to both candidates. What initially seemed to be single incidents rapidly grew to the rank of a systemic problem. The scale of the irregularity forced itself State Election Commission to admit mistakes. In an authoritative election study dated 16 June, the PKW confirmed that at least 11 regional electoral commissions were wrongly assigned the number of votes received.

The analysis of these cases is devastating to the reliability of authoritative data. According to PKW, mistakes to the detriment of Rafał Trzaskowski were found in 9 committees, while in 2 others he lost Karol Nawrocki. In only these 11 committees the consequence of Rafał Trzaskowski was reduced by a full of 1932 votes. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg, due to the fact that the number of protests and reports of irregularities is much higher, and each of them may cover another miscalculated vote.

The ultimate Court decision. Why won't there be a correction of the results?

In the face of increasing doubt, everyone's eyes were turned to the ultimate Court, specifically the home of Extraordinary Control and Public Affairs, which dealt with electoral protests and was to regulation on the importance of elections. The resolution that was yet taken is simply a legal masterpiece, but besides a origin of immense confusion. The court declared the validity of the election of Karol Nawrocki, based on the fundamental constitutional principle: “The president of the Republic is elected as a candidate who received more votes in a re-vote”.

What is crucial, however, is what the ultimate Court has not done. The resolution does not specify the exact corrected number of votes. What's more, SN did not order the State Election Commission to correct the election notice, despite the fact that the application was made by the lawyer General himself. The Court of First Instance held that the deficiencies found, even considered together, "do not give emergence to a question of the validity of the President's election".

In practice, this means that official, incorrect data stay in force. The court cited in the explanatory memorandum almost 30 signatures of the protests which it considered justified but at the same time irrelevant to the final outcome. However, under each of these signatures there are specific, incorrectly counted votes or cases of non-voting. The deficiency of decisions to recalculate the votes in these circuits and correct the protocols creates legal and informative chaos that may undermine assurance in the full system.

The DA's in the game. Will recalculation of votes change anything?

In view of the inactivity of the ultimate Court to correct the results, the prosecution took the initiative. lawyer General Adam Bodnar announced that the case would not be swept under the carpet. presently in prosecutors' offices throughout the country is conducted 29 procedures for possible electoral irregularities, as well as 53 investigations that may turn into formal investigations. Each of these proceedings may uncover further errors and affect the final, numerical balance of votes.

Moreover, the National Prosecutor's Office announced its intention to examine the results of the vote in at least 249 regional electoral commissions. Adam Bodnar declared that the effects of recalculation of the votes cast in them should be known even before the swearing-in of Karol Nawrocki. However, the implementation of this promise depends on the pace of work of prosecutors conducting individual proceedings, which may prove hard to synchronise in specified a short time.

Unfortunately, even this extended prosecution action may not have a final answer. The specified recalculation of voting cards will not let to find clearly how many votes were actually cast on Karol Nawrocki, and how many on Rafał Trzaskowski in the full country. It will only be another component of a complex puzzle, but not its complete solution. The results of these 249 committees will request to be compared with the authoritative data of the PCW, the findings of protests in the SN and the results of tens of another proceedings.

Democratic paradox. What does this mean for trust in the system?

Poland is in a situation of democratic paradox. We have a president-elect whose choice has been legally approved by the ultimate Court, but at the same time we do not have a credible, authoritative confirmation that precisely the advantage he won. The authoritative proclamation of the PCW, which should be the foundation of legitimacy of power, proved to be a paper containing errors that no 1 intends to formally correct.

It is virtually impossible to find the actual aggregate result of the vote today. This would require gigantic analytical work to collect and compile data from 3 independent sources: defective PKW protocols, documentation from nearly 30 protests recognized by the SN and results from respective 100 prosecutorial proceedings. specified an operation is not only highly difficult, but its result could inactive be undermined due to the deficiency of a uniform, central verification procedure.

Consequently, the numerical and certain consequence of the vote on June 1 will most likely never be officially published. We will stay with the cognition of who won, but with no answer to the question of precisely what the consequence is. This is simply a serious blow to the transparency and trust of citizens in the state and its institutions, which can have long-term consequences for Polish democracy.