Electoral commission resigns

After almost a week of inefficient local election vote counting, all members of Poland's State Electoral Commission (PKW) have announced their resignation. Six of the members said they were leaving their posts on Friday evening, two other, including the PKW head Stefan Jaworski, did so earlier. On Wednesday, PKW secretary and head of the National Electoral Office Kazimierz Czaplicki also filed his resignation. The commission had been under fire throughout the week following the election, which took place on November 16. Vote counting was originally interrupted by a computer system breakdown, but the PKW was unable to announce the results even after the problem was fixed. Some politicians have called for the ballot to be repeated both due to these problems and to a high number of invalid votes. However, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz has rejected such an option.