Talk:1989 Polish parliamentary election

Major Copy Edit
I just made a major copy edit. Please feel free to correct any mistakes that I made. Someone should also look into finding out whether Solidarity got 160 or 161 seats in the Sejim. Dracofulmen (talk) 23:17, 27 March 2019 (UTC)

Contradictions
Under "Results", it says "Altogether, out of 161 seats eligible, Solidarity took 160. The single Solidarity candidate not to be elected attributed his failure to missing an opportunity to take an electoral photo with Wałęsa, something all the other Solidarity candidates were able to do", but the summary at the beginning of the section and the election infobox at the top of the article say that Solidarity won 161 seats, so which is correct, did they win 160 or 161? XinaNicole (talk) 06:47, 25 August 2014 (UTC)

Vote figures
Are there no vote figures available for this election? Number  5  7  23:36, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * The full results have been published, but an actual nationwide tally has never been made. --RevivesDarks (talk) 23:56, 27 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the response. Are they available online? Number   5  7  00:10, 28 March 2019 (UTC)

Commons files used on this page have been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons files used on this page have been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:07, 9 January 2020 (UTC)
 * Poseł Kazimierz Morawski IX kadencja.jpg
 * Poseł Roman Malinowski IX kadencja.jpg
 * Poseł Zenon Komender IX kadencja.jpg

Possible movement to '1989 Polish parliamentary election'
Hello,

I am putting forward a proposal to move this article to '1989 Polish parliamentary election' to be more consistent with other Polish election articles. I just want to hear other peoples' opinions first.

Thanks. Aydenholtonvlogs (talk) 02:12, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I would support that, plus all the ones back to 1919. The same was recently done for the Czech Republic. Cheers, Number   5  7  20:49, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Vote figures and electoral law
FeldmarschallGneisenau, stop removing the vote figures from the infobox. Your reasons for doing so show that you do not understand the unusual electoral law which facilitated the partly-contested nature of these elections. This electoral law clearly states that there was a system of reserved seats per party, and that voters had multiple votes in a constituency:


 * Article 39
 * 39.1 . Pursuant to the concluded roundtable agreement, the Council of State specifies for discrete electoral districts the number of seats allocated for candidates who are members of the Polish United Workers Party, the United Peasant Party, and the Democratic Party, and also of the PAX Association, the Christian Social Union, and the Polish Catholic-Social Association, as well as for nonparty candidates. In every electoral district at least one seat is set aside for nonparty candidates.
 * 39.2. The decisions referred to in Paragraph 1 are contained in the resolution of the Council of State adopted in accordance with Article 12.
 * Article 40
 * Pursuant to the provision of Article 39, Paragraph 1, the district electoral commission appends [information on the party or nonparty affiliation] to the information on each numbered parliamentary seat and immediately notifies the voters accordingly.
 * Article 53
 * 53.1. Separate ballot cards are printed for each seat in an electoral district. 
 * 53.2. The ballot cards listing the candidates in electoral district specify the identifying numbers of the parliamentary seats and the surnames and names of the candidates entered in the registry of candidates.

'' Glide08 (talk) 00:21, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * There are a couple of issues here:
 * While I don't object in theory to the vote figures being added to the infobox (they are legitimate figures if correct), they need to be properly sourced. As far as I can see, the current source lists the candidates and their vote totals, but does not give party affiliations, so the results table fails WP:V as it stands.
 * The percentages in the infobox should be the percentage of the vote received, not percentage of the seats (as is given at the moment)
 * Given that both of you have violated 3RR, I would strongly suggest neither of you make any further reverts of any kind, or you will be blocked. I would also remind editors of the WP:BRD convention and not to try and force back in changes they want to make by reverting reverts. Number   5  7  01:55, 25 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The vote figures as they were before FeldmarschallGnieschau's edits were calculated by combining the votes for the elected Solidarty candidates in the independent candidates' constituencies (since all solidarity candidates were elected, this is as simple as looking up the names of elected solidarity MPs), and the sums of votes in each PRON's party's reserved constituencies (e.g. the PZPR figure was the sum of all valid votes cast in the PZPR's reserved constituencies; in addition to the Council of State decree that outlined the reservations, Polish Wikipedia has articles for each of the constituencies, which include per-seat results with the party reservation at the header.). Unfortuantely, it seems FeldmarschallGnieschau has changed the vote figures to match his idea of how they should be like (i.e. only one vote per voter), in a way that doesn't line up with the actual results or the electoral law used at the time. Glide08 (talk) 13:23, 26 May 2024 (UTC)
 * The party reservation can also be concluded based on the Council of State decrees outlining the seat allocation (initial allocation and revised allocation), and the affiliations of elected deputies as listed on the Sejm website. Glide08 (talk) 14:32, 3 June 2024 (UTC)
 * As for the percentages, deriving the percentages from the vote would create a misleading image; Solidarity candidates were only allowed to run in the seats reserved for independent candidates, PZPR candidates were only allowed to run in the seats reserved for PZPR candidates, etc. etc. Glide08 (talk) 13:35, 26 May 2024 (UTC)

Establishing the precise vote tally
Can the precise vote tally even be established? An RS states that a total of 17 million people took part in this election. What is the precise number? And what precise number of people voted for Solidarity? And others? FeldmarschallGneisenau (talk) 15:12, 3 June 2024 (UTC)


 * The election was conducted using multiple non-trasferrable vote. A voter did not have one vote, but multiple votes equal to the number of seats in the constituency (so a voter in a two-seat constituency had two votes - one for seat A and one for seat B, a voter in a three-seat constituency had three votes - one for seat A, one for seat B and one for seat C, etc. etc.). Within each cosntituencies, seats were reserved to either one of the PRON member parties, or to everyone else.
 * Keeping in mind the fact that seat reservations were only available to individual parties within the government coalition (so, for example, PZPR candidates could only run in the PZPR's reserved seats, ZSL candidates could only run in the ZSL's reserved seats, etc.), finding out the votes received by each party in the government coalition is as simple as finding out the sum of all votes cast in that party's reserved seats. In the open seats (which were contested only by independent candidates and oppositon parties), this is more complex, but since Solidarity won all 161 open seats in the Sejm, finding out what Solidarity's vote figure was is still a matter of summing up the votes of the candidates elected in the open seats. Glide08 (talk) 19:45, 4 June 2024 (UTC)
 * OP asked for the precise number. It seems you don't have it, so why respond at all?
 * I wanna know this too. 2A00:F41:1C2C:9632:495C:D69E:7B8C:4686 (talk) 08:43, 5 June 2024 (UTC) Striking block evasion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 13:12, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The sum of all votes cast for a party's candidates is the precise number of votes for that party. Glide08 (talk) 11:27, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Possible infobox change
Would this be a better redesign for the infobox? ImperatorPublius (talk) 00:36, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes absolutely – I had been thinking exactly the same thing. As there were numerous rounds of voting, it would be best to exclude any reference to vote figures (rather than choosing one set of figures over the others) and just focus on the seats won (the end result). I've suggested a couple of tweaks (fully spelling out party names and adding the map), but otherwise I think it looks very good, and is a big improvement on the current one, which is far too long IMO. Cheers,  Number   5  7  00:53, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Vote figures which mix the contested and uncontested parts of the elections to boot - the only change I'd make is figure out how to add the % of votes Solidarity candidates won in the contested seats in the Sejm (only one of these races had to be determined in a second round). Glide08 (talk) 15:14, 9 June 2024 (UTC)