Voting in the public consultation of the Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski civic budget has concluded.

The civic budget in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski had been in operation before from 2015 to 2019. However, its implementation was suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. This year, the city authorities decided to return to the special idea of public consultations, while also changing the previous rules. The new edition of the civic budget allowed participation by minors, both in terms of submitting their ideas and voting.  Additionally, it enabled voting not only at physical polling stations but also, and predominantly, electronically through a dedicated platform.

The previous record for participation was set in the 2015 edition, with slightly over 4,000 people voting. This year's edition significantly surpassed that record, with 6,162 participants (approximately 10% of the eligible population, regardless of age). The majority, nearly 1,000 people, voted on the first and last days, and the daily average was approximately 450 voters.

The voting process was continuously monitored and randomly verified, including phone verification of online voters.  Votes from the same IP address were also reviewed, and the system prevented duplicate votes. The commission found no major irregularities, although there were some errors in the provided birth dates, which were likely input mistakes by the voters. Interestingly, the majority of voters were women, making up 57% of the total, and a significant majority voted via their mobile phone browsers, accounting for 75% of the votes.

Enabling young people to participate in the Civic Budget has proven to be a success, as the statistics show. A total of 25% of all voters were 25 years old or younger, and 7 proposals included in the voting process were submitted by minors. 

Vice-Mayor Artur Łakomiec expressed his gratitude to all the proposal submitters and voters during a press conference presenting the budget results. He invited everyone to review the results while emphasizing that even projects that did not win but achieved significant results deserve at least partial implementation. 

The project with the highest number of votes was Project No. 20, "Brine Graduation Towers in the Ogrody and Stawki estates”, receiving as many as 6,212 points. The next in line was the development of the area by the pond in Częstocice, followed by the project involving the construction of a traffic training area in the Koszary estate. The last project accepted for implementation was social integration in the "Kolonia Robotnicza" estate.

The full list of results can be found at www.boos.um.ostrowiec.pl and by clicking the link HERE