Social election observers in polish electoral law

https://doi.org/10.26485/SW/2018/26/1

Abstract

_{The subject of the article is to discuss the new institution of Polish electoral law – the socia observers of the elections. This institution, next to the well-known in Polish law the persons of trust and international election observers, should constitute another instrument of social control of the election process and at the same time contribute to increasing the reliability and fairness of the elections. The first part of the article discusses the genesis of the institution in question, in particular paying attention to the demands made in reports prepared by OSCE electoral observation missions. The second part presents international standards in the field of social election observation. In the paper the status and tasks of social election observers in the light of Polish Electoral Code was also analyzed. The last part of the article is a comparison of the new institution with the existing solutions including the institution of international election observers and persons of trust.}