The process of opening precincts and initiation of voting process
The coalition observation mission of Georgian civil organizations - "My Vote" is observing the elections of the Parliament of Georgia on October 26 in all electoral districts throughout Georgia. The mission unites about 2000 people, among them, 150 citizens are involved in observing election stations opened abroad. The observers of the coalition observe the election process throughout Georgia in all electoral districts as well as in the CEC. 133 mobile groups are working in 73 electoral districts. During the day, observers regularly provide us with information about the process at the polling stations on election day, as well as about specific violations and incidents.
We present the results of the observation based on the information received from the observers regarding the opening of polling stations and the beginning of voting.
According to the information provided by observers to "My Vote", from the 988 stations opened in Georgia:
Voting in 69 precincts started late;
At 36 polling stations, the observers were prevented from opening the process;
Complaints were written in 13 precincts and a note was made in the record book in 17 local precincts.
The majority of polling stations, where the coalition observed the opening procedures, were ready on time to receive the first voters, however, according to the observers, voting started late in dozens of polling stations (7% of the monitored stations).
It is extremely concerning that there were up to 25 cases of giving more than one ballot and voting to voters in precincts (in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th districts), Kakheti (in the 12, and in the 14th, 17th and 20th districts) and in Batumi (79th district). There were also two ballot attempts - in the 35th, 38th and 37th electoral districts. This creates high risks of falsification. Such cases will lead to the problem of determining the balance in the summary records. It is also possible to aim at artificially creating the basis of the invalidity of the results of the polling station or other types of manipulation.
Observers are not given the opportunity to observe the activity of the registrar due to the placement of verification machines at certain polling stations. Also, due to the unfavorable layout of the infrastructure/equipment, the observers did not have the opportunity to observe the verification machine. Such violations were observed in the 25th precinct of the 13th district, the 4th precinct of the 12th district, the 52nd precinct of the 21st district, the 54th precinct of the 20th district, the 13th and 14th precincts of the 7th district, in the 46th precinct of the 5th district, in the 1st and 32nd precincts of the 64th district.
At the same time, throughout Georgia, technical problems related to the verification machines have been recorded. Verification machines cannot register voter ID cards and registrars have to manually enter data into the machines. The created situation does not allow the observers to make sure whether the person announced at the site is correctly identified. While during the pre-election period information has been spread about the confiscation of ID cards from citizens, such a trend is particularly alarming.
The observers of the coalition were not allowed to observe the 2 election precincts of Athens.
Remarkable incidents:
Illegal restriction of observer/representative/media rights
Restrictions on audio and video recording are fixed throughout Georgia. In particular, observers are not allowed to take photos and videos. This is when stationary cameras are placed on a large part of the areas, which in some cases are directed both to the sound booth and to the sound equipment.
There were also cases when the appropriate number of commission members were not present in the district. Such a case was registered in the 15th district of the 2nd district.
Violation of the voting procedure
In Tbilisi and some regions, voters were accompanied by other persons in the voting booths. For example, in Adjara, Batumi, the chairman of the 79.02 precinct commission entered the voting booth to help a blind voter in violation of the election legislation.
Election precincts opened abroad
Due to the time difference, most of the overseas locations have not opened yet. The observers of the coalition were not allowed to observe the 38th and 39th election precincts of Athens. Later, the observer was allowed to visit the 38th site, but the observer is still not allowed to observe the 39th site.
Observers of the observation mission "My Vote" will provide us with photos of the summary report throughout the night, which will be published step by step and publicly available on the website wevote.ge/results [1]. On the same website, photos of the preliminary results of the voting sent by our observers (consolidated final report) from the polling stations where the elections are held using electronic technologies will be available. The publication of the extract of the preliminary results and the photos of the summary reports on the "My Vote" website allows any citizen to verify the correspondence of the data officially recorded by the CEC with the official documents obtained by the observers at the precincts.