The results of the 2025 election. Tarczyński shows the map “Speaking of the dark people”. Misleads

From the announcement results of the presidential election There is a discussion about the provinces in which Rafał Trzaskowski or Karol Nawrocki and the education of voters of both candidates won. In this context, a map of Poland was made available to the level of passing the pass rates of matura exams in individual regions in social media. According to her, residents of eastern provinces – including Podlasie, Lublin and Podkarpackie – they were to get better results at the high school final exams, a higher percentage than students in western voivodships – including Dolnośląskie, Lubuskie or West Pomeranian. And it is in the eastern provinces More voters in the second round He voted for Karol Nawrocki than in the West.

He posted a map on June 3, among others PiS MEP Dominik Tarczyński, and on the attached header you can read: “This map shows the pass rate of the final exams, about the dark people from the East” (original spelling). The politician himself commented only in one word: “data”. His entry was displayed during the day of almost 640 thousand. times, it was further given 2.7 thousand. times, he had 17,000 likes.

The map was also made available on many anonymous accounts, including on the X website, on Facebook or on Tiktoku. Some entries were very popular: original post Over 175,000 were displayed on the thicket, which was later used by Dominik Tarczyński. times. The authors of the entries commented: “This is the passing of the final exams in individual voivodships. Does it not coincide with the map from the election. I don't think you need to comment”, “Hey, smiling! The eastern wall has a better pass rate of matura exams, so your narrative with a better education poop does not hold”, “this is the passing of the matura exam in the individual species. In science than this enlightened West “,” passing the final exams … An interesting dependence with the last election results … and apparently only the dark people vote for the right … “(spelling of all posts original).

However, we explain why the use of this map in the context of the results of the presidential election misleads.

This is not the first time this map is published on the web after elections, the results of which have shown that the eastern part of Poland voted differently than the Western. The fact that it was published earlier shows that it is not valid. How We explained After elections to the European Parliament in May 2019, The map shows archival data on the passing of the final exams from 2009.

The map comes from the archival article of the “Perspektywy” magazine regarding the discussion of the results of the final exams from 2009. The original was all red, but in its shared version some voivodships were marked in green and blue to make it look like maps of the election results in which eastern voivodships vote more often for conservative parties such as PiS or conservative candidates like Karol Nawrocki. In addition, extreme colors were specially selected to emphasize the differences between voivodships, while they were not really so large: between the results in the province. Pomeranian (79.9 percent) and the province Mazowieckie (81.2 percent) the difference was 1.3 pp, and despite this both were marked with extreme colors.

The pass rate of matura exam divided into voivodships is regularly published by the Central Examination Commission. Her archival data From 2009, they confirm that it is from this year that the map now made available as current. However, it is already available much more currently Report for 2024. The results by voivodships from last year are completely different from those given on the map sent on the network: there is no division into the worse West and a better east of the country. The pass rate in three eastern voivodships: Podlasie (82 percent), Lublin (83 percent) and Podkarpackie (84 %) were comparable to the results of three western voivodships: West Pomeranian, Lubuskie and Lower Silesian (83 % each).

Students from the province had the best pass rate in the country. Lesser Poland (87 percent), after them from the province Świętokrzyskie (86 percent) and Mazowiecki (86 percent). The least – although still with a result above 80 percent. – Last year, high school graduates were the final exams in the province. Podlasie (82 percent) and Opole (81 percent).

In addition to the validity of the map, it should also be emphasized that the data on the pass rates of the final exams concern only one year of high school graduates, and therefore are not representative of all residents of a given province. As for education, data on this subject is collected, among others in universal lists.

According to the latest The National List of Universal Population and apartments 2021 The largest percentage of people with higher education is inhabited by the province. Mazowieckie (32.4 percent). Next are: voivodeship Lesser Poland (25.6 percent), Pomeranian (25.4 percent), Dolnośląskie (25.3 percent) and Podlasie (23.8 percent).

Completing any data with election results by voivodships is, however, burdened with another error. Data by voivodships are a strong generalization, because when you look at election results divided into poviatsand even more so for municipalities, it can be seen that the division there is more diverse than the boundaries of voivodships would suggest. Therefore, the use of matura exam maps according to voivodships, in addition 16 years ago, is a misleading in the context of election results.