A woman voting at one of the polling stations in Lublin wanted to put a cross next to the selected name, but noticed that she was doing it with an erasable pen. The police intervened on site. The pen has been secured. Determinations are underway whether it was handed over by someone from the electoral commission, or perhaps it was brought to the premises by one of the voters.
The website spottedlublin.pl wrote about the case after it received photos of a voting card from a reader, on which she had written and then erased the inscriptions.
A woman appeared at one of the polling stations in Lublin on Sunday when she noticed that the pen she used to fill out the voting card had an eraser with which she could erase the marked cross.
“At the same time, I noticed that the person in front of me also used the same type of pen to vote. This is disturbing because there is a suspicion that there could have been more similar cases in the ballot box, which may affect the correctness of voting,” she reported to the portal.
The matter was reported to the electoral commission and the police.
She noticed that the pen had an eraser (illustrative photo) New Africa/Shutterstock
They “revealed and secured” one pen
Superintendent Andrzej Fijołek, spokesman for the Provincial Police Commander in Lublin, confirmed in an interview with tvn24.pl that the uniformed officers intervened on Sunday in kindergarten No. 66 at ul. Jana Samsonowicza 33a, where the electoral commission was located.
– One pen was discovered and secured. Determinations are underway whether it was issued by someone from the electoral commission, or maybe someone from the voters brought it with them and forgot to take it. The report came from a woman who was afraid that someone might be rigging the elections, the policeman said.
The police are checking what happened
He adds that the activities are carried out in the direction of the offense under Art. 248 point 2 of the Penal Code, which provides for violations during the course of elections, punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment.
– According to the same article, activities are also carried out regarding tearing of electoral cards. We had three cases where someone took the card and then tore it up. There were also two attempts to take the cards out without throwing them into the ballot box. Perhaps someone thought that once they downloaded the card, they could do whatever they wanted with it. However, this is not the case. These are also electoral crimes, the spokesman emphasized.
Main photo source: New Africa/Shutterstock