GYLA has been monitoring the course of elections in the following election districts: Nadzaladevi N9, Samtredia N54 and Baghdati N52. Notably, the polling process was mostly peaceful and no major violations of the Election Code have been reported. At 13:30 we already updated public on the situation at election districts at that time. With this statement we would like to sum up the course of voting procedures and highlight key violations and trends reported by our observers.
Procedural violations have been reported at the following several precincts:
• An unauthorized individual was acting as an observer at Baghdati election precinct N12. In particular, Deputy Chairperson of Tskaltubo Sakrebulo Zaza Metreveli was observing the elections in the name of an NGO, Future Choice. Notably, similar violation was reported at Samtredia election precinct N38 where a member of Khoni Sakrebulo, Levan Bobokhidze was monitoring elections in the name of an organization, the New Generation Democratic Elections.
• Similar to previous elections, there were individuals outside election precincts who registered arriving voters. We would like to reiterate that this qualifies as an indirect control exerted over voters’ will and is inappropriate. Such practice was reported in the following election precincts of Nadzaladevi: N31, 33, 34, 36, 39, 40, 59, 60, 89, 90, 78, 80, 81, 85, 86 and in the election precinct N13 of Samtredia.
• Rights of journalists were restricted at Nadzaladevi election precinct N24. In particular, reporters of Rezonasi - Salome Sigua, Tamta Kakauridze and Iago Natsvlishvili were insulted verbally by observers of Civil Society and Democracy Center, a non-governmental organization, and the Caucasian Research Center, who identified themselves as representatives of the Georgian Dream. They also attempted to abuse these journalists physically.
• A voter was unable to cast a ballot at Nadzaladevi election precinct N81 as he found that someone else had already signed along his name on the unified voter list.
• At Samtredia election precinct N21, signatures of voters who had cast a ballot were missing in the mobile ballot box. A complaint seeking imposition of a disciplinary measure on PEC members accompanying the ballot box was filed.
• After polling through a mobile ballot box was finished in Baghdati election precinct N41, it turned out that the number of ballot papers allocated for voting through the ballot box was different from the sum of unused ballot papers and signatures on the mobile ballot box list.
• Casting of a ballot instead of someone else was reported at Samtredia election precinct N34.
By now, there have been total of 12 complaints filed by GYLA’s observers (four in Nadzaladevi, seven in Samtredia and two in Baghdati) and two comments made in the book of records.
GYLA continues monitoring of vote count and tabulation.
