Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) has deployed 6 mobile teams to observe today’s Parliamentary By-Elections taking place in three single-mandate districts: Nadzaladevi, Baghdati and Samtredia. So far, a calm and relaxed atmosphere reigns over these elections, along with a low rate of participation.

By 1:00pm, we had lodged only one complaint: at the polling station #20 located in the village of Khiblari, Samtredia, a citizen who was not registered either in the mobile ballot box list or the general voters list, voted via the mobile box. She placed her signature in the space allotted to another voter, who was then still allowed to vote  despite a signature being in place across her name. We haven’t observed any other significant violations so far.

Some other minor violations we have observed so far:

1. At Samtredia’s polling stations #43 and 12, two persons (one at each) claimed they represented the Central Election Commission (CEC) at the polling stations but had no official badges to prove it. They said their badges were to arrive during the day. Upon our observer’s request, these persons left the respective polling stations.

2. A nongovernmental organization Election Environment Development Center was represented by three observers at three polling stations in Samtredia: #3, 12 and 40. Two observers left each of the above-mentioned polling stations after our observers pointed out the violation.

3. At Samtredia’s #50 polling station a non-governmental organization New Generation Democratic Elections was represented by two observers. One representative left the polling station upon our observer’s request.

4. Campaign material was posted nearby Baghdati polling station #10 which was removed upon our observers’ request.

There were two other tendencies, observed also during the 2012 Parliamentary Elections, that should be noted: (1) the number of ballots at the polling stations is less than the number of voters at many polling stations; (2) coordinators representing electoral subjects are making notes of voters who showed up at the election outside many polling stations.