The amendment assumes the creation of “Portal for submitting candidates or lists of candidates in general elections, run and maintained by the National Electoral Office. Voters will be able to submit their ballots via the portal electronic declarations of support, authenticated, among others, a trusted signature, a personal signature or a qualified electronic signature.
See also: Incorrect data and signatures of the deceased. The National Electoral Commission refused to allow two candidates to participate in the elections
The rest of the article is below the video
The novella predicts creation a hybrid method of collecting signatures without giving up the traditional collection of signaturesenriched with electronic signatures.
240 MPs voted for the amendment, 152 were against and 30 abstained.
Elections to the Sejm and Senate. A new way of collecting signatures
The Sejm rejected an amendment submitted during the second reading by Confederation MP Witold Tumanowicz, which was intended to ensure transparency of the number of signatures collected in electronic form after the registration process by a given committee.
According to the novella the electronic form of support is intended to cover, among others, elections to the Sejm and Senate, the European Parliament, local government elections and elections of commune heads, mayors and city presidents. Electoral committees will be obliged to submit lists of signatures to electoral authorities in both paper and electronic form.
The aim of the amendment is to increase civic participation.
The amendment assumes that the voter will provide support using an electronic form by completing the electronic form available on the Portal, authenticating it and submitting it via the portal.
See also: Hołownia submitted his signatures to the National Electoral Commission. We know how many of them he collected
The amendment provides that the electronic form will contain the name of the electoral committee submitting the list or candidate, the number of the electoral district in which the list or candidate is submitted, the surname, first name, address and PESEL number of the person providing support, as well as a dated annotation of support. The forms would then be forwarded to the electoral committees of the supported candidate.
Collecting signatures before the elections for change. What costs and penalties?
The novella also assumes extension of criminal provisions — liability is to cover abuses related to collecting support electronically, including exerting pressure on voters (fine from PLN 1,000 to PLN 10,000) or accepting financial benefits in exchange for support (fine from PLN 10,000 to PLN 50,000).
The amendment is to enter into force six months after its announcement. The cost of creating the portal was estimated at PLN 10 million, and its maintenance at approximately PLN 1 million per year, financed from the budget of the National Electoral Commission..
The project was submitted in June 2024 by, among others, Polish MPs 2050.
The amendment will now go to further work in the Senate.
