The phenomenon of vote separation in Poland’s local elections in selected cities – preliminary analysis of the subject matter

Abstract

This article presents the results of research on vote separation (dispersion) in the local government elections in Poland. The opportunity for this phenomenon arises from the provisions of the electoral law on the registration of candidates – the right to register a candidate for governor, mayor or city president is granted to the electoral committee which has registered candidates for councillors in at least half of the electoral districts of the municipality. At the same time, voters are not obliged to vote for a candidate for the executive body and candidates for the legislative body from the same electoral committee. The analysis examined elections in Kraków from 2002 to 2018 and elections held in twenty cities in 2024. It was concluded that the phenomenon of vote splitting does exist, is quantitatively significant and is primarily related to the type of electoral committee. As a rule, a candidates declaring non-party status receives more votes than the electoral committee proposing them, while a candidate of a political party or a coalition of political parties receives less votes than the electoral committee.