DOCSLIB.ORG

RSCAS WP 2020/07 Spaceu2019 Final Report

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
RSCAS WP 2020/07 Spaceu2019 Final Report RSCAS 2020/07 Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies The European Governance and Politics Programme spaceu2019 final report Lorenzo Cicchi European University Institute Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies The European Governance and Politics Programme Spaceu2019 final report Lorenzo Cicchi EUI Working Paper RSCAS 2020/07 This text may be downloaded only for personal research purposes. Additional reproduction for other purposes, whether in hard copies or electronically, requires the consent of the author(s), editor(s). If cited or quoted, reference should be made to the full name of the author(s), editor(s), the title, the working paper, or other series, the year and the publisher. ISSN 1028-3625 © Lorenzo Cicchi, 2020 Printed in Italy, January 2020 European University Institute Badia Fiesolana I – 50014 San Domenico di Fiesole (FI) Italy www.eui.eu/RSCAS/Publications/ www.eui.eu cadmus.eui.eu Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies The Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, created in 1992 and currently directed by Professor Brigid Laffan, aims to develop inter-disciplinary and comparative research on the major issues facing the process of European integration, European societies and Europe’s place in 21st century global politics. The Centre is home to a large post-doctoral programme and hosts major research programmes, projects and data sets, in addition to a range of working groups and ad hoc initiatives. The research agenda is organised around a set of core themes and is continuously evolving, reflecting the changing agenda of European integration, the expanding membership of the European Union, developments in Europe’s neighbourhood and the wider world. For more information: http://eui.eu/rscas The EUI and the RSCAS are not responsible for the opinion expressed by the author(s). The European Governance and Politics Programme The European Governance and Politics Programme (EGPP) is an international hub of high quality research and reflection on Europe and the European Union. Launched in 2018, it is part of the research programmes of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute. The EGPP maintains its core activities through externally funded research projects, including financial support from the European Commission through the European Union budget, and is animated by the Programme Associates, leading scholars from different disciplines brought together by their interest in European integration and its future development. For more information: http://europeangovernanceandpolitics.eui.eu/ Abstract In occasion of the European Parliament elections of 2019, the EUI in partnership with StatLab launched project Spaceu2019, a two-fold online tool specifically tailored for mobile EU citizens voting either in their country of citizenship or residence. The University of Luzern in Switzerland contributed to the tool implementation. The first pillar consists of an interactive database, informing users on their electoral rights and allowing them to compare the conditions and requirements for participating in the political process of their country of residence or citizenship. The second pillar is euandi2019, a Voting Advice Application (VAA) helping citizen find the political party that best matches their policy preferences. The main objective was to create a more aware European-wide, politically active citizenry, therefore making the EP elections more relevant and transnational. This also may have helped getting citizens out to vote, given that EP elections are traditionally prone to particularly low levels of turnout. The main target group were EU mobile citizens as well as those with a dual citizenship, but also European citizens at large as this device is open to all and gives useful information on how to vote, and which parties are the best match, to static citizens as well. The project received funding by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020), Grant Agreement number 785683. None of this funding was transferred to Switzerland. The University of Luzern instead contributed through the Swiss National Science Foundation grant for project “Towards transnational voting in/for Europe”. This report provides information on the implementation and usage figures for both online tools. Keywords European elections, party placement, Voting Advice Applications, electoral rights, EU mobile citizens. General framework* In recent years, the number of EU mobile citizens (i.e. EU citizens resident in a Member State different than their own) is growing. EU mobile citizens have been granted the right to vote (as well as that of standing as candidates in EP elections) in the host Member State under the same conditions as that State’s nationals, as stated in Article 22 TFEU, Article 39 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and Directive 93/109/EC(42). However, their political participation is generally low. Potential factors are 1. Access to participation in the host country and factors limiting it (legal framework, voting infrastructure); 2. Knowledge about the rights and opportunities to participate; 3. Level of political engagement; 4. Availability of politically suitable options. Project Spaceu2019, implemented by the European University Institute1 in collaboration with StatLab, specifically helps European citizens in regards of these factors. It is composed by two pillars: 1. An interactive database, informing users on their electoral rights and allowing them to compare the conditions and requirements for participating in the political process of their country of residence vs. citizenship (tackling factors 1 and 2, and as a by-product factor 3); 2. An online Voting Advice Application (VAA), that allows users to match their policy preferences with the positions of the political parties running for EP elections in all 27 Member States, focusing on the electoral contexts in which voters exercise their voting rights (tackling factor 4, and as a by-product factor 3). The first pillar was launched online in February 20192 and is still available at the address www.spaceu2019.eui.eu. By late March, all translations were completed and the dissemination strategy commenced. The second pillar, instead, was implemented as a stand-alone website launched in late April 2019 and still available at the address www.euandi2019.eui.eu . This decision was taken in order to order to maximize the impact of the tool: already in 2014 the EUI had launched a EU-wide VAA called euandi (read: “EU and I”), and the name continuity was deemed to be an important branding factor not to be lost by merging the VAA within the – at that time – already existing interactive electoral rights database. Multiple cross-linking logos (see figures in next sections) were deployed in both websites in order to ensure mutual re-directions from one pillar to the other. Both websites were completely multi-lingual, with all pages and sub-pages available in EU’s 23 official languages3. The astonishing number of around 1.3 million users were reached, however with an extremely skewed distribution towards the second pillar. On overall it is safe to say that these figures can be viewed as a definitive success of the entire project. * ‘The project Spaceu2019 was funded by the European Union’s Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme (2014-2020), G.A no. 785683. The content of report represents the views of the author only and is his/her sole responsibility. The European Commission does not accept any responsibility for use that may be made of the information it contains. 1 The University of Luzern also contributed to the tool implementation, through the Swiss National Science Foundation grant for project “Towards transnational voting in/for Europe”. 2 According to the EC Action Grant, both tools should have been launched simultaneously in March 2019. However, the party positioning were not available until later in the electoral campaign, so the launch of the VAA was postponed to April; conversely, the electoral law provisions of certain countries that required EU mobile citizens to register, in order to cast their vote in the country of residence, earlier than March, pushed the project scientific leadership to anticipate this date; therefore, the electoral database was already launched online in February. 3 Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Finnish, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish. 1 Lorenzo Cicchi Spaceu2019 Spaceu2019 consisted, as explained, of an interactive dataset of electoral rights for the EP elections 2019 specifically tailored at EU mobile citizens and available in all 23 EU official languages. Upon entering the homepage, users were asked to select their country of citizenship and residence (figure 1). Figure 1. Spaceu2019 country selection page After having selected the countries, users were redirected to a page presenting detailed information on how to cast their vote in both countries. This information is available in English and in all official languages of the selected country of citizenship; therefore, for instance, a German citizen could visualize how to vote in Germany or in any other country in both English and German. This takes into account also for those countries with multiple official languages4. Figure 2 below shows the visualization output for one case of such multi-lingual countries. All pages featured a link to the second pillar of the project,
Load more

Recommended publications
  • First Thoughts on the 25 January 2015 Election in Greece
    GPSG Pamphlet No 4 First thoughts on the 25 January 2015 election in Greece Edited by Roman Gerodimos Copy editing: Patty Dohle Roman Gerodimos Pamphlet design: Ana Alania Cover photo: The Zappeion Hall, by Panoramas on Flickr Inside photos: Jenny Tolou Eveline Konstantinidis – Ziegler Spyros Papaspyropoulos (Flickr) Ana Alania Roman Gerodimos Published with the support of the Politics & Media Research Group, Bournemouth University Selection and editorial matter © Roman Gerodimos for the Greek Politics Specialist Group 2015 All remaining articles © respective authors 2015 All photos used with permission or under a Creative Commons licence Published on 2 February 2015 by the Greek Politics Specialist Group (GPSG) www.gpsg.org.uk Editorial | Roman Gerodimos Continuing a tradition that started in 2012, a couple of weeks ago the Greek Politics Specialist Group (GPSG) invited short commentaries from its members, affiliates and the broader academ- ic community, as a first ‘rapid’ reaction to the election results. The scale of the response was humbling and posed an editorial dilemma, namely whether the pamphlet should be limited to a small number of indicative perspectives, perhaps favouring more established voices, or whether it should capture the full range of viewpoints. As two of the founding principles and core aims of the GPSG are to act as a forum for the free exchange of ideas and also to give voice to younger and emerging scholars, it was decided that all contributions that met our editorial standards of factual accuracy and timely
    [Show full text]
  • The Making of SYRIZA
    Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line Panos Petrou The making of SYRIZA Published: June 11, 2012. http://socialistworker.org/print/2012/06/11/the-making-of-syriza Transcription, Editing and Markup: Sam Richards and Paul Saba Copyright: This work is in the Public Domain under the Creative Commons Common Deed. You can freely copy, distribute and display this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line as your source, include the url to this work, and note any of the transcribers, editors & proofreaders above. June 11, 2012 -- Socialist Worker (USA) -- Greece's Coalition of the Radical Left, SYRIZA, has a chance of winning parliamentary elections in Greece on June 17, which would give it an opportunity to form a government of the left that would reject the drastic austerity measures imposed on Greece as a condition of the European Union's bailout of the country's financial elite. SYRIZA rose from small-party status to a second-place finish in elections on May 6, 2012, finishing ahead of the PASOK party, which has ruled Greece for most of the past four decades, and close behind the main conservative party New Democracy. When none of the three top finishers were able to form a government with a majority in parliament, a date for a new election was set -- and SYRIZA has been neck-and-neck with New Democracy ever since. Where did SYRIZA, an alliance of numerous left-wing organisations and unaffiliated individuals, come from? Panos Petrou, a leading member of Internationalist Workers Left (DEA, by its initials in Greek), a revolutionary socialist organisation that co-founded SYRIZA in 2004, explains how the coalition rose to the prominence it has today.
    [Show full text]
  • LSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) Blog: What Are the Prospects for the Polish Left? Page 1 of 4
    LSE European Politics and Policy (EUROPP) Blog: What are the prospects for the Polish left? Page 1 of 4 What are the prospects for the Polish left? Poland’s communist successor party has seen its opinion poll ratings increase in recent months. This upturn in support came after the revival of debates about the country’s communist past prompted by government legislation affecting the interests of its core electorate. But as Aleks Szczerbiak writes, the party’s leadership has failed to develop any new ideas or initiatives that can attract broader support beyond this declining group of former communist regime beneficiaries and functionaries. Without a political game-changer, the left will remain a marginal actor in Polish politics. Image from a Democratic Left Alliance campaign event ahead of the 2014 European Parliament elections, Credit: Democratic Left Alliance For most of the post-1989 period, the most powerful political and electoral force on the Polish left was the communist successor Democratic Left Alliance (SLD), which governed the country from 1993-97 and 2001-5. However, the Alliance has been in the doldrums since its support collapsed in the 2005 parliamentary election following a series of spectacular high-level corruption scandals. It contested the most recent October 2015 election – won decisively by the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, the first political grouping in post-communist Poland to secure an outright parliamentary majority – as part of the ‘United Left’ (ZL) electoral coalition in alliance with the ‘Your Movement’ (TR) grouping. The latter was an anti-clerical social liberal party led by controversial businessman Janusz Palikot, which came from nowhere to finish third with just over 10% of the votes in the 2011 election but failed to capitalise on this success and saw its support decline steadily.
    [Show full text]
  • Folder 14 Poland, Vol. 1
    --- ,· . ' - ~~ -----1.- Via Diploma.tic Pouch. v' ./ Mr. Van Arsdale Turner, Acting Asst. Director, Civilian Relief, Insular & Foreign Operations, American Red Crose, National Headquarters, Washington, D.c. Dear Van: Reverting to your letter of March 17 and 9J1l' reply of April Y, on the subject of the copy O!/the current report on the work of the Joint Relief Commission in Poland which you desired to receive, the London Committee of the International Red Cross have now been able to furnish us with copies of the following reports, which please find enclosed herewith: Join{ Relief Commission of the International Red Cross, a~~va, Distribution of medical supplies to.Poland, 11 Comporel S JDent", 1942-1943. v v Joint Relief Commission of the International Red Cross, Geneva,. Med~aments Envois en Pologne 1942-1943. "" -~ The I.R.CoC. inform us that a copy of the report of the Joint Relief Commission in Poland was sent direatiy to you from Geneva on March 1.4. ~"fil:rr~ / William L. Gower, Director of Civilian Re.lief. RW. .• . OFTHi;i rn"iEi~ATIQ~AL RIBD CROSS International Heid Gross Committee - 4, Cours des Bastions1 - PHARMACEUTICAL SERVICE ...;. MEDICAL SUPPLIES i. '' ShipmentR into Poland. Typed on slip '~ttached to this page. In order tlnt ,,'co may oc; Hble to fill in the gaps which are apparent, in thi:c tre1o,tl:c<?, >;7 :ih~~ll oe very grC1.teful if you ~till com~nunicate any additional in !'orma ti on, wi;ich you rrmy possess. un following page, SUMMARY \ Pages1 I. Introductory Note 1 & 2 ,\\ \ II. Resume of Shipments: \ ·\ .
    [Show full text]
  • Europe (In Theory)
    EUROPE (IN THEORY) ∫ 2007 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper $ Designed by C. H. Westmoreland Typeset in Minion with Univers display by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in- Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. There is a damaging and self-defeating assumption that theory is necessarily the elite language of the socially and culturally privileged. It is said that the place of the academic critic is inevitably within the Eurocentric archives of an imperialist or neo-colonial West. —HOMI K. BHABHA, The Location of Culture Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction: A pigs Eye View of Europe 1 1 The Discovery of Europe: Some Critical Points 11 2 Montesquieu’s North and South: History as a Theory of Europe 52 3 Republics of Letters: What Is European Literature? 87 4 Mme de Staël to Hegel: The End of French Europe 134 5 Orientalism, Mediterranean Style: The Limits of History at the Margins of Europe 172 Notes 219 Works Cited 239 Index 267 Acknowledgments I want to thank for their suggestions, time, and support all the people who have heard, read, and commented on parts of this book: Albert Ascoli, David Bell, Joe Buttigieg, miriam cooke, Sergio Ferrarese, Ro- berto Ferrera, Mia Fuller, Edna Goldstaub, Margaret Greer, Michele Longino, Walter Mignolo, Marc Scachter, Helen Solterer, Barbara Spack- man, Philip Stewart, Carlotta Surini, Eric Zakim, and Robert Zimmer- man. Also invaluable has been the help o√ered by the Ethical Cosmopol- itanism group and the Franklin Humanities Seminar at Duke University; by the Program in Comparative Literature at Notre Dame; by the Khan Institute Colloquium at Smith College; by the Mediterranean Studies groups of both Duke and New York University; and by European studies and the Italian studies program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
    [Show full text]
  • How They Lived to Tell 1939-1945 Edith Ruina
    How They Lived to Tell 1939-1945 Together members of a Jewish youth group fled from Poland to Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Palestine Edith Ruina Including selections from the written Recollection of Rut Judenherc, interviews and testimonies of other survivors. © Edith Ruina May 24, 2005 all rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Published 2005 Mixed Media Memoirs LLC Book design by Jason Davis [email protected] Green Bay,Wisconsin CONTENTS Acknowledgment ..............................................................................v Chapter 1 Introduction ......................................................................1 Chapter 2 1939-1942 ......................................................................9 1. The People in this Story 2. The Situation of Jews in Poland Chapter 3 1939-1942 Poland..........................................................55 Before and After the German Occupation Chapter 4 1943 Poland ..................................................................87 Many Perished—Few Escaped Chapter 5 1943-44 Austria............................................................123 Chapter 6 1944 Hungary..............................................................155 Surviving in Hungary Chapter 7 1944-1945 ..................................................................205 Romania en route to Palestine Chapter 8 Palestine ......................................................................219 They Lived to Tell v Chapter 9 ....................................................................................235
    [Show full text]
  • The October 2015 Polish Parliamentary Election
    An anti-establishment backlash that shook up the party system? The october 2015 Polish parliamentary election Article (Accepted Version) Szczerbiak, Aleks (2016) An anti-establishment backlash that shook up the party system? The october 2015 Polish parliamentary election. Perspectives on European Politics and Society, 18 (4). pp. 404-427. ISSN 1570-5854 This version is available from Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/63809/ This document is made available in accordance with publisher policies and may differ from the published version or from the version of record. If you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher’s version. Please see the URL above for details on accessing the published version. Copyright and reuse: Sussex Research Online is a digital repository of the research output of the University. Copyright and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable, the material made available in SRO has been checked for eligibility before being made available. Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk An anti-establishment backlash that shook up the party system? The October 2015 Polish parliamentary election Abstract The October 2015 Polish parliamentary election saw the stunning victory of the right-wing opposition Law and Justice party which became the first in post-communist Poland to secure an outright parliamentary majority, and equally comprehensive defeat of the incumbent centrist Civic Platform.
    [Show full text]
  • EUROPEAN ELECTIONS in the V4 from Disinformation Campaigns to Narrative Amplification
    Strategic Communication Programme EUROPEAN ELECTIONS IN THE V4 From disinformation campaigns to narrative amplification 1 AUTHORS Miroslava Sawiris, Research Fellow, StratCom Programme, GLOBSEC, Slovakia Lenka Dušková, Project Assistant, PSSI, Czech Republic Jonáš Syrovátka, Programme Manager, PSSI, Czech Republic Lóránt Győri, Geopolitical Analyst, Political Capital, Hungary Antoni Wierzejski, Member of the Board, Euro-Atlantic Association, Poland GLOBSEC and National Endowment for Democracy assume no responsibility for the facts or opinions expressed in this publication or their subsequent use. The sole responsibility lies with the authors of this report. METHODOLOGY Data were collected between 10.4.2019 and 29.5.2019 from 15 relevant Facebook pages in each V4 country based on the following criteria: local experts and publicly available sources (such as blbec.online) identified Facebook channels that often publish disinformation content. In the selection of Facebook pages, those openly affiliated with a specific political party were omitted, including the Facebook pages of individual candidates. The data were filtered using different forms of the term “election” in local languages and the term “euro”, and then labelled based on the sentiment toward relevant political parties and the most prevalent narratives identified. © GLOBSEC GLOBSEC, Bratislava, Slovakia June 2019 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 4 Czechia 4 Hungary 4 Poland 4 Slovakia 4 ACTIVITY OF THE MONITORED CHANNELS ACROSS THE V4 REGION 6 Intensity of the campaigns 6
    [Show full text]
  • List of Members
    Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean Members David Maria SASSOLI Chair Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament Italy Partito Democratico Asim ADEMOV Member Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) Bulgaria Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria Alex AGIUS SALIBA Member Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament Malta Partit Laburista François ALFONSI Member Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance France Régions et Peuples Solidaires Malik AZMANI Member Renew Europe Group Netherlands Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie Nicolas BAY Member Identity and Democracy Group France Rassemblement national Tiziana BEGHIN Member Non-attached Members Italy Movimento 5 Stelle François-Xavier BELLAMY Member Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) France Les Républicains Sergio BERLATO Member European Conservatives and Reformists Group Italy Fratelli d'Italia Manuel BOMPARD Member The Left group in the European Parliament - GUE/NGL France La France Insoumise 24/09/2021 1 Sylvie BRUNET Member Renew Europe Group France Mouvement Démocrate Jorge BUXADÉ VILLALBA Member European Conservatives and Reformists Group Spain VOX Catherine CHABAUD Member Renew Europe Group France Mouvement Démocrate Nathalie COLIN-OESTERLÉ Member Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) France Les centristes Gilbert COLLARD Member Identity and Democracy Group France Rassemblement national
    [Show full text]
  • Xerox University Microfilms
    INFORMATION TO USERS This material was produced from a microfilm copy of the original document. While the most advanced technological means to photograph and reproduce this document have been used, the quality is heavily dependent upon the quality of the original submitted. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help you understand markings or patterns which may appear on this reproduction. 1. The sign or "target" for pages apparently lacking from the document photographed is "Missing Page(s)". If it was possible to obtain the missing page(s) or section, they are spliced into the film along with adjacent pages. This may have necessitated cutting thru an image and duplicating adjacent pages to insure you complete continuity. 2. When an image on the film is obliterated with a large round black mark, it is an indication that the photographer suspected that the copy may have moved during exposure and thus cause a blurred image. You will find a good image of the page in the adjacent frame. 3. When a map, drawing or chart, etc., was part of the material being photographed the photographer followed a definite method in "sectioning" the material. It is customary to begin photoing at the upper left hand corner of a large sheet and to continue photoing from left to right in equal sections with a small overlap. If necessary, sectioning is continued again — beginning below the first row and continuing on until complete. 4. The majority of users indicate that the textual content is of greatest value, however, a somewhat higher quality reproduction could be made from "photographs" if essential to the understanding of the dissertation.
    [Show full text]
  • Law and Justice's Stunning Victory in Poland Reflected Widespread
    blogs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2015/11/02/law-and-justices-stunning-victory-in-poland-reflected-widespread-disillusionment-with-the- countrys-ruling-elite/ Law and Justice’s stunning victory in Poland reflected widespread disillusionment with the country’s ruling elite What does the recent parliamentary election in Poland tell us about the country’s politics? Aleks Szczerbiak writes that the victory secured by the right-wing opposition party Law and Justice stemmed from widespread disillusionment with Poland’s ruling elite. He notes that the usual strategy employed by the ruling party, Civic Platform, of trying to mobilise the ‘politics of fear’ against Law and Justice was not successful this time. The election result heralds major changes on the political scene including a leadership challenge in Civic Platform, the emergence of new ‘anti-system’ and liberal political forces in parliament, and a period of soul searching for the marginalised Polish left. Poland’s October 25th parliamentary election saw a stunning victory for the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, previously the main opposition grouping. The party increased its share of the vote by 7.7 per cent – compared with the previous 2011 poll – to 37.6 per cent, securing 235 seats in the 460-member Sejm, the more powerful lower house of the Polish parliament. This made Law and Justice the first political grouping in post-communist Poland to secure an outright parliamentary majority. At the same time, the centrist Civic Platform (PO), the outgoing ruling party led by prime minister Ewa Kopacz, suffered a crushing defeat, seeing its vote share fall by 15.1 per cent to only 24.1 per cent and number of seats drop to 138.
    [Show full text]
  • The 2015 Elections to the Senate of the Republic of Poland
    Polish Political Science Yearbook vol. 45 (2016), pp. 205–218 DOI: 10.15804/ppsy2016016 PL ISSN 0208-7375 Krystyna Leszczyńska Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin (Poland) The 2015 Elections to the Senate of the Republic of Poland Abstract: The discussion about justification for the very existence of Senate, as it was the case in previous years, also took place prior to the 2015 parliamentary elections. Postulates for the second chamber of parliament to be abolished are the inseparable element of election campaigns in Poland. Announcements of total abolishment or change of: form, competencies or number and the election prin- ciples for members of Senate, although they found their expression in the 2015 election programs of some of the political parties, but they were never applied after elections. The single member Senate constituencies secured seats almost ex- clusively for candidates supported by one of the two strongest political parties, that is the Law and Justice (PiS) and the Civic Platform (PO). Even if in the result of 25 October 2015 elections four independent candidates were elected for senators, three of them used support of political parties, using a rule well proven four years earlier: there is not senator without a political party protector. The 40% support for PiS which turned into 61% of seats indicates that the election system for Senate leads to overrepresentation of election winners. Keywords: Senate; election campaign; single member constituencies; deformation of election result; overrepresentation of the winning party Introduction The analysis of the 2015 Senate election campaign aims at verification of two hy- potheses. First of the assumes that the announcements of abolishment or change of Senate’s character are solely an element of pre-election strategy and in those catego- ries we may perceive the votes that negate the justification for its very existence.
    [Show full text]