the Second World War, and they were not reestablished in the era of communist Poland. The sejmiks were revived again after the fall of communism in modern Poland. Since 1999, the term sejmik (in full, sejmik województwa) has been used to refer to the elected council of each of the 16 voivodeships or regions (see voivodeship sejmik). The word sejmik was chosen by lawmakers in order to eliminate the term rada wojewódzka (voivodeship council), which conjured memories of voivodeship people's councils during the communist Poland era. Sejmiks of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth Features Sejmiks were usually held in a large, open field. The nobility would elect a presiding officer (marszałek sejmiku: sejmik marshal), whose role was analogous to the marshal of the sejm at national Sejms. (This term has been revived since 1999, but it now refers to the chairman of the voivodeship executive board rather than the presiding officer of the sejmik itself.) While the sejmiks were originally convened by the king, soon a loophole was exploited: the sejmiks would limit the number of issues discussed, using that as a pretext to reconvene later at a time chosen by the marshal. Voivodes and starosts also had the ability to convene some sejmiks. Until the reforms of the Constitution of 3 May, all the nobility residing in the territory that was holding a sejmik were eligible to participate in the sejmik. It is estimated that most sejmiks drew around 4 to 6% of eligible participants. Types Historians distinguish several types of sejmiks, depending on their geographical scope: General (Polish: generalny, Latin conventiones generales), held in western Poland (Greater Poland) at Koło, in southern Poland (Little Poland) at Nowe Miasto Korczyn, in Masovia at Warsaw, in Red Ruthenia at Sądowa Wisznia (Sudova Vyshnia), and in Lithuania at Wołkowysk (Vawkavysk). The General Sejmiks were composed of delegates elected at the provincial sejmiks, and of Senators. Their goal was to agree on a position for the General Sejm (Sejm Walny) and issue instructions for the deputies on how they were supposed to vote during the General Sejm. The competences of the general sejmiks were defined by precedent and custom rather than law; on rare instances when external circumstances prevented a national Sejm from being convened (such as 1511, 1513 and 1577), the general sejmiks were seen as competent to legislate on national matters. In the 15th century some general sejmiks reserved the right to