The Russians spend about two and a half million rubles supporting Poniatowski's election, his supporters and opponents engage in some military posturing and even minor clashes, and in the end, the Russian army is deployed only a few miles from the election sejm, which meets at Wola near Warsaw.

In the end, there are no other serious contenders, and during the convocation sejm on September 7, 1764, the thirty-two-year-old Poniatowski is elected king, with 5,584 votes.

He swears the pacta conventa on November 13, and the formal coronation takes place in Warsaw on November 25.

The new King's uncles in the Familia would have preferred another nephew on the throne, Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, characterized by one of his contemporaries as débauché, sinon dévoyé (debauched if not depraved), but Czartoryski had declined to seek the office.