Polish diaspora takes keen interest in presidential election

Poles living abroad are keen to participate in Sunday’s presidential elections, and half a million voters have registered to cast their ballots at hundreds of stations worldwide.

According to Polish law, they can vote in parliamentary and presidential elections; they are only barred from casting their ballot in local elections. Importantly, it is not mandatory to live permanently in the country in question to vote abroad.

Anyone with Polish citizenship, regardless of whether they have ever lived in Poland, has the right to vote. This includes children of immigrants born abroad but with Polish citizenship and relevant documents, which is not the rule in all European countries.

In the UK, citizens living abroad can only vote for fifteen years after leaving the country. In Germany, citizens living abroad must have lived in Germany for at least three months in the last 25 years or can prove that they “have a close personal and direct relationship with German politics” if they intend to vot

It is possible to vote even while staying somewhere only for a holiday or a short visit. However, one must register well in advance, either on a dedicated website or by email. Just as in Poland proper, the election lasts for one day, but, for example, due to time zones, in some countries the voting has already taken place on Saturday.

In the US, more than 43,000 people registered to vote, with the largest number of voters casting their ballots at precincts in the Chicago and New York metropolitan areas.

Record numbers of voters abroad

The last parliamentary elections, in October 2023, attracted record interest. As many as 600,000 Poles registered to vote in foreign polling stations to take part in the elections and a referendum, with the largest number of voters recorded in London, Berlin, and Munich. Due to such a high level of interest, more polling stations were opened than ever before — 417.

This year’s presidential election is also generating a significant response from Poles. According to information made available by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, almost 500,000 people have taken advantage of this opportunity.

Belgium is no exception. This year, more than 18,000 people registered to vote in the Belgian presidential election – the vast majority of voters did so online via the e-election system.

“This compares to around 21,000 people in the 2023 parliamentary elections in Belgium, while in the 2020 presidential elections, around 9,000 voters voted in the first round and around 11,000 voters in the second round,” Poland’s Consul Dagmara Jasinska told Euronews.

“The statistics in the 2020 presidential election were similar to those in 2015, when almost 10,000 voters registered to vote,” Jasinska added.

The largest number of voters – more than 2,000 – turned up to vote in Ghent and Antwerp, some of the most popular polling stations set up for Polish voters worldwide. In Brussels, voters turned out fairly evenly, with between 1,000 and 1,700 people voting in each of the 19 communes.

The long history of Polish intellectual centres of life abroad, including its government-in-exile, which existed from 1939 to 1990, has perpetuated a strong tradition of participation by Poles outside Poland in the political life of this country.

Poland’s accession to the European Union in 2004 also triggered a wave of mass emigration to Western Europe. Figures from 2021 show that almost 700,000 Polish citizens live in the UK, while another 900,000 people with Polish citizenship reside in Germany.