Preliminary report on the first round of the presidential election

The Presidential Election scheduled for June 28, 2020, was conducted during the ongoing state of epidemic declared in Poland due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which was followed by a new legal framework. The Act of June 2, 2020, provided all voters with an option of voting traditionally in the polling station or voting by mail. Announcement of the new date of the election in less than a month prior to the election day imposed strict deadlines on all participants of the electoral process, i.e. the election administration, candidates and voters.

The process of voting and tabulation may be evaluated as positive. The observers did not record any incidents that may have significantly influenced the election results. Although, attention should be drawn to issues and problems that, if not solved, may have a greater impact on the conduct and the outcome of the 2nd round of the presidential election:

• electoral packages were not delivered on time to voters voting by mail abroad,
• voters that wanted to register via the ePUAP (online) system encountered problems,
• precinct election commission members were not properly trained, in particular with regards to counting; the observers assessed this stage as bad or very bad in over 60 % of observed polling stations.

The full preliminary report on the first round of the presidential election can be read below, including recommendations to improve the electoral process.