First exit poll results of Polish elections are available, and based on these it looks like PiS might not remain in power, which would be good news. Let's wait for official results though!
About 73% of eligible voters voted. That is massive and phenomenal. Probably best result in any elections in #Poland since 1989. 🎉
But two things I am mainly interested in are:
the result of Konfederacja, the far-right libertarians
how many people voted in the referendum part of this election cycle
Konfederacja is a far-right libertarian unholy alliance of bigots, anti-EU conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers and so on. Exit polls give them 6.2%, but exit polls tend to under-report support for the far-right, in my experience.
The reason this is important is that if they got the ~10-13% they polled at a couple of weeks ago, they would probably form the government with PiS. Which would mean an even more far-right anti-EU government than we've ever seen in Poland so far. And that's… :oof:
More than 50% of eligible voters must vote in a referendum for it to be binding.
So the strategy for the defeating the obnoxious referendum without denying the opposition the vote was to go vote, but refuse to take the referendum voting card.
That's a bit involved, and for a lot of people (esp. from small towns) it also means their neighbors might now learn they refused to vote in the referendum — revealing their political leanings potentially against their will.
That's why I am very, very interested in how many people voted in the referendum part of this election cycle.
It takes intent and some courage to publicly state "I am not taking the referendum voting card, please make a note of that next to my name" in a crowded polling station.
How many people did that will be very important information.
@rysiek you'd think it would take courage. What PiS might have achieved is shoot itself in a foot by forcing people to make these public declarations en masse.
Normally, when there's an impression of an “overwhelming opinion”, people with dissenting views are discouraged from voicing it and so see themselves as lone exceptions in a sea of uniformity.
Actually what happened is PiS has had a huge PITA about voting commissioners calmly asking people if they want to vote in the referendum all over the country. Which gave people space to calmly, while still publicly, decline, and see other people decline too.
Estimates put referendum turnout at 40%. That would mean that 44% of voters (at 72% turnout) declined the referendum card.
Not just refuse to take the referendum card, but also make sure that the election official writes down an official note that the voter did not take the referendum card. Apparently some officials had to be gently reminded to do this, since they "accidentally" forgot.
There's a risk that the lack of a note of refusing the referendum card will be counted as an invalid vote in the referendum, instead of non-participation.
@rysiek Do you believe the exit poll is trustworthy? I am so, so happy for you, for Poland, for Europe, and the world if this really is a defeat for the hateful government you've had to put up with the last few years!
Meanwhile, people who were queueing up before 21:00 received a document proving that they still have a right to vote and some have still been waiting in line after 23:00 CEST (UTC+2) while the queues shortened:
True. So much for my amateur political demographics effort. :P Though there was a big gender split among 18-29 yr olds, if I remember right - male incels having difficulty coping with the risk of growing up into a non-patriarchy.
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