Nine members of Electoral Commission No. 4 in Węercin, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, face imprisonment and charges of mishandling ballots during Poland’s presidential election, swapping votes between Rafał Trzaskowski and Karol Nawrocki.
Electoral Misconduct
The incident occurred during the counting of votes where votes for Rafał Trzaskowski were mistakenly given to Karol Nawrocki. Instead of receiving 331 votes, the PIS-backed candidate received 466 votes, originally meant for Trzaskowski, the candidate supported by the Civic Coalition.
Prosecutor Investigation
According to Arkadiusz Arkuszewski, spokesperson for the Włocławek prosecutor’s office, the misconduct allegedly involved not preparing a manual ballot protocol and not checking the results against the machine-generated printout.
Consequences
A total of nine individuals were suspected of misconduct. Out of these, five individuals have confessed, one has submitted an affidavit claiming inability to relate to the charges, and three remain unconfessed.
