Polish prosecutors charge 87 election workers over vote errors in presidential runoff

Expansion of the Siedlce investigation

The District Prosecutor's Office in Siedlce has charged 87 precinct election commission members in an expanding investigation into the second round of Poland's 2025 presidential election. The tally of charged individuals rose from 69 in mid-September after investigators questioned additional commission staff from several regional voting districts. The inquiry focuses on precinct commission chairs, deputy chairs, and regular members who oversaw voting operations, handled ballot verification, and compiled precinct return records. District prosecution spokesman Bartłomiej Świderski stated that prosecutors are systematically summoning and interrogating more election workers as evidentiary materials are assembled.

To date, the prosecutor of the District Prosecutor's Office in Siedlce in this case has charged 87 people with unintentionally failing to fulfill their duties.

Nature of ballot errors and candidate impacts

The criminal allegations focus on the unreliable counting of valid and invalid ballots during the decisive runoff, alongside the improper preparation of official election protocols. According to investigators, errors committed by commission staff distorted the certified results for candidates Karol Nawrocki and Rafał Trzaskowski, as portions of the votes cast for each candidate were mistakenly swapped between piles. Because commission members held the formal status of public officials on election day, they were bound by duty to conduct the vote in their precincts and ensure strict adherence to electoral law. Prosecutors noted that the discrepancies caused direct harm both to the public interest and to the competing candidates.

This caused significant harm to the public interest regarding the correctness of the elections and significant harm to the private interest of individual presidential candidates.

Commission locations and confession rates

The irregularities under investigation span multiple polling stations across eleven municipalities in the region. Prosecutors documented procedural failures in precinct commissions located in Stoczek, Stanin, Mińsk Mazowiecki, Bychawa, Magnuszew, Radom, Lublin, Łaskarzew, Stoczek Łukowski, Poturzyn, and Łęczna. When investigators announced charges against 68 commission members in early September, 40 of those suspects formally confessed to the allegations during questioning. The total number of charged members grew to 69 by mid-September before reaching 87 following subsequent witness interviews and protocol audits. Investigators continue to review precinct files from these locations to determine whether additional members failed to fulfill their legal obligations.

Court filings and legal consequences

Under the criminal code provisions applied by investigators, suspects accused of unintentionally failing to perform their official electoral duties face potential sentences of up to two years in prison. In late July, prosecutors lodged a formal indictment against six members of Precinct Election Commission No. 4 in Stoczek, which operated at the local Educational Complex. That specific case was transferred to the district court for judicial proceedings. In addition, prosecutors filed separate motions for the conditional discontinuance of criminal proceedings regarding three other commission members in Stoczek. The Siedlce prosecutor's office continues to review records from other polling stations and conduct further interrogations as new evidence warrants additional charges.