Elections to Voivodeship Council have been held in Poland since 1998, in connection with the introduction of a three-tier local government structure with provinces as self-governing communities at the regional level. These elections were conducted using an electoral system based on constitutional norms (albeit only general ones), the Act on Voivodeship Self-Government and the following laws: initially Ordynacja wyborcza do rad gminas, rad rad powiatów i sejmików województwa and later the Electoral Code Act.

The electoral system (in its narrower sense) consists of the following elements:

1. The structure of the electoral districts (their number, boundaries and the number of seats to be allocated in each district),
2. The manner in which the election results are determined (this is determined by the electoral formula and the elements contained therein such as the electoral method or the statutory electoral thresholds),
3. The method of voting (in other words, the powers of the voter when voting - how many votes he or she has, whether he or she can accumulate them, etc.).

Structure of electoral districts

The number of councillors elected in each ward ranged from 5 to 15.

Electoral formula

Elections to provincial assemblies in the period 1998-2018 were conducted using a proportional representation formula using the d'Hondt electoral method. Seats were divided separately in each of the 41 electoral districts.

In these elections, a statutory threshold was applied relating to the valid votes cast on a province-wide basis. In order to take part in the distribution of seats, the electoral lists of a given committee (collectively) had to exceed the threshold of 5% of the validly cast votes. In contrast, no higher threshold was introduced for coalitions or the possibility for committees of voters affiliated to national minority organisations to be exempted from exceeding the threshold.

The exception to this was the election held in 2006, in which so-called list blocking (formation of groups of lists) was applied. The electoral committees could decide to form a block (group of lists) in the elections to a given assembly (each separately). If the block (group of lists) exceeded the threshold of 15% of the valid votes cast on a province-wide basis, its lists in each ward were treated together when the seats were distributed (instead of the number of votes of each of the ward lists of the committees forming the block, the sum of the number of votes cast for the lists of all the committees forming the block was taken into account). The seats obtained by a block of lists in a given constituency were divided among the lists of the individual committees in the constituency using the Sainte-Laguë method, but only among those committees that exceeded the 'ordinary' electoral threshold.

Method of voting

Each voter had one vote, which he or she cast for the electoral list of his or her choice submitted by the electoral committee in the district, together with an indication of the specific candidate on that list to whom he or she was giving his or her support. Open lists were therefore used at district level. Candidates on a given ward committee list took their seats in order of the number of votes obtained. If a seat became vacant, the next candidate on the same list took precedence according to the number of votes obtained.

Maciej Onasz, based on: Onasz Maciej, Inżynieria wyborcza w Polsce od roku 1989, Łódź 2017; Ustawa z dnia 16 lipca 1998 r. - Ordynacja wyborcza do rad gmin, rad powiatów i sejmików województw; Dz.U. 1998 nr 95 poz. 602 (z późn. zm.); Ustawa z dnia 5 stycznia 2011 r. - Kodeks wyborczy, Dz.U. 2011 nr 21 poz. 112 (z późn. zm.).