The alternative voting forms in the Polish election law

Abstract

The crisis of citizens’ participation in the elections is the feature of many European states, and also Poland. The main thesis of the article is that the voting absence is the problem, which could be solved using different solutions, and one of them is the institutional convenience to facilitate the voting process. The analysis of the use of alternative voting procedures in Polish electoral practice demonstrates, however, that they are not very popular. This fact raises questions about the reasons for this state of affairs and the forms of corrective actions in this regard. To clarify the research problems, the Author used the institutional-legal method and analysed the normative acts, which regulate alternative voting procedures. The comparative method allowed to indicate the existing gaps in the adopted institutional solutions and the practice of their application, as well as to find possible ways to achieve the optimal scheme. The application of the system approach gave the opportunity to make a comprehensive overview of the examined institutions and related phenomena, and to draw conclusions regarding necessary actions to increase their effectiveness.

Keywords

• voting law
• alternative voting forms
• correspondence voting
• voting by the representative