WARSAW — Supporters of the mayor of Warsaw, joined by scores of Polish voters and rights groups, raced on Thursday to file legal challenges to the validity of Sunday’s presidential election, which he narrowly lost to the incumbent, President Andrzej Duda. The rush to file the complaints was the result of a new electoral code passed by the government in May, cutting the time to file such challenges from 14 days to three. In lodging the official protests with the nation’s Supreme Court, supporters of the mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, were not expecting to overturn the result of the election, given the margin of defeat of nearly half a million votes. Their object was more to expose what they said was a pattern of political interference that marred the country’s closest election since the end of communist rule in 1989 and to delay the certification of the vote long enough for it to be declared invalid.

Source: New York Times July 16, 2020 15:45 UTC