Evolution of Election Law in the Senate of the Third Republic of Poland

Abstract

This article presents evolution of the election law in the Senate of the Third Republic of Poland (1989-2011). The issue of electoral formula applied during election to the ‘second house’ of the Polish parliament was given particular attention. For the purpose of the study, it was assumed that the electoral formula is the principle of transforming votes into seats. Nowadays, three electoral formulas are applied – i.e. majority, proportionate and mixed. The majority formula is used for election to the Polish Senate; however, it was not until 2011 that one-seat constituencies were used (multi-seat constituencies were previously applied). It is worth emphasizing that the adopted legal solutions result in the necessity to hold by-elections, which receive little public attention. Therefore, the possibility of establishing a mixed formula ought to be taken into consideration in order to reduce negative impact of currently applied legal solutions, such as the difficulty in obtaining seats by smaller political parties and the need to holdby-elections.