The National Electoral Commission of Poland has provided the first data on voter turnout in the presidential election, which as of 12:00 was 20.28%. This is almost 4 percentage points lower than in the previous presidential election in 2020.
“The State Electoral Commission informed that as of 12:00 on May 18, ballots had been issued to 5,739,537 voters, which is 20.28% of the total number of voters“, announced the chairman of the electoral commission, Sylwesz Marciniak. According to him, the voter turnout by noon in the 2020 presidential election was 24%, and in the 2023 parliamentary elections - 22%.
In addition, Marcinyak reported incidents during the voting. Thus, in Szczecin, a 97-year-old woman died of a heart attack right at the polling station; voting was not interrupted. At a polling station in the city of Bielsko-Biała in southern Poland, an aggressive man bit a member of the election commission on the left forearm; the offender was detained.
Marcinyak noted that the final election results could be announced either on the morning of Tuesday, May 20, or on the night of Monday to Tuesday, depending on the counting abroad.
Voting for the presidential election beganon May 18 in Poland. 13 candidates are competing for the post of head of state. According to polls, none of them will be able to secure the support of an absolute majority of voters to win in the first round (50%+1). The candidates with the best chances of advancing to the second round are the candidate of the ruling Civic Coalition, Rafal Trzaskowski, and the independent candidate supported by the opposition Law and Justice party, Karol Nawrocki. In third place in the polls is the candidate of the far-right Confederation, Slawomir Menzen.
The President of Poland is elected for a five-year term and can be re-elected only once.
