Poland’s largest opposition party, Civic Platform, wants to introduce new methods of voting and standardise the rules regarding all types of elections. 
“This will be the Civic Platform’s flagship” says senator Dariusz Bachalski, who is in charge of the works on the propositions for the new code. The project is to be presented during the party’s convention in May.
The idea is simple – to gather all the election regulations within one code. And to add to them some new ways of voting – correspondence and anticipatory voting as well as voting by a proxy and via Internet.
Civic Platform wants the new election code to be adopted before the end of the present parliamentary term. “If Law and Justice rejects the project, we will submit it right after the next elections” – Bachalski announces.
Apart from the standardisation of the rules concerning inter alia the members of the board of elections appointment and salary, elections financing and financial settlements after the elections, Civic Platform wants to introduce some new ways of voting.
The polls by the Public Opinion Research Centre from December 2005 on the reasons for the low turnout during the last parliamentary and presidential elections show that the most common cause to skip it was a chronic disease, inability to move around or disability.
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It is possible that during the next elections those who did not took part in the last ones, will be able to vote without leaving their homes – for example by means of correspondence voting.
Another idea – especially for mobile and active Poles – would be anticipatory voting.
It would be possible to cast one’s vote in a special polling station at an appointed time before the elections.
The sealed and secured vote would get into the ballot box on the day of the elections. Voting via Internet would also be possible.
(jm)