Polls opened early Sunday morning in the Polish presidential elections held early this year to replace President Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash in April in Russia, DPA reported.
Some 30.5 million eligible voters were set to cast their ballots in some 25,000 polling stations throughout the country in the elections that were originally slated for this autumn.
Bronislaw Komorowski, of the centre-right Civic Platform party, had been leading in opinion polls with 50 per cent of the vote. His opponent Jaroslaw Kaczynski, twin brother of the deceased president, was in second place with about 33 per cent of pre-election surveys, running on the bill of his right-wing Law and Justice party.
Neither candidate was expected to get the 51 per cent needed to win in the first round. If there is no absolute majority winner Sunday, Poles will cast their votes in a second round on July 4.
Lech Kaczynski died April 10 in a plane crash with 95 others en route to a ceremony in Russia marking a Soviet-era massacre. Since his death, Komorowski has been acting president.
Exit poll results will be announced at 20 PM local time (18 GMT) when the balloting ends.