Poles living abroad are keen to take part in elections. According to Polish law, they can vote in parliamentary and presidential elections, only in local elections they cannot participate. Importantly, it is not necessary 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, for example children of immigrants who were born abroad but have Polish citizenship and the relevant documents. This 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 vote.
It is possible to vote even while staying somewhere only for a holiday or a short visit. However, one has to register well in advance, either on a special website or by sending an email. Just as in Poland itself, the election lasts for one day, but, for example – due to time zones – in some countries it has already taken place on Saturday.
In the USA, more than 43,000 people registered to vote, with the largest number of voters in the country voting at precincts in the Chicago and New York metropolitan areas.
Record numbers from voters to polling stations abroad
The last parliamentary elections, in October 2023, attracted record interest, with as many as 600 000 Poles registering to vote in foreign polling stations to take part in the elections and in 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 large response from Poles. According to information made available by the 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. The statistics in the 2020 presidential election were similar to those in 2015, when almost 10,000 voters registered to vote,” – Poland’s Consul Dagmara Jasinska told Euronews.
The largest number of voters – more than 2,000 – turned up to vote in Ghent and Antwerp, some of the most popular PECs 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 8 communes.
The long history of Polish intellectual centres of life abroad, including the Polish 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 there are almost 700,000 Polish citizens in the UK and almost 900,000 people with Polish citizenship in Germany.