Statement regarding the voting process 15:30 [Rus]

12 July

15:30

For the second round of the Municipal Elections “Multinational Georgia” is carrying out the elections monitoring mission in Kvemo Kartli (Rustavi city), Kakheti (Telavi, Kvareli and Akhmeta cities as well as Karajala community of Telavi municipality), Shida Kartli (Gori city), Mtskheta-Mtianeti (Mtskheta city) regions as well as in three electoral districts of Tbilisi (Krtsanisi, Isani and Samgori) with the high density of ethnic minority voters. The monitoring mission will also cover the Central Election Commission of Georgia. It has to be noted that the monitoring mission of the “Multinational Georgia” will cover all the electoral precincts of Telavi, Gori and  Mtskheta cities.

The monitoring mission will be executed by 155 observers out of which 115 are Short Term Observers (STO), 9 District Election Commission (DEC) observers, 30 Mobile Group (MG) Observers and 1 Central Election Commission (CEC) observers.

According to the findings obtained by the observers of the “Multinational Georgia” the turnout in Mtsketa by 12:00 accounted for 20%, in Gori 15.10% and in Telavi 13.20%. The voters’ turnout in 46 electoral precincts of 3 electoral districts (Krtsanisi #4, Isani # 5 and Samgori # 6) of Tbilisi with the compact settlement of ethnic minorities accounted for 13%.

According to the findings obtained by the observers of the “Multinational Georgia” for the period of 8:00-15:00 the voting process has been conducted with minor electoral shortcomings.

 At this stage observers of the organization has filed 3 complaints and revealed 38 incidents:

• # 16 electoral precinct of # 32 Gori electoral district was opened prior to 7:00. The incident has not been resolved by the verbal objection raised by the observer of the “Multinational Georgia”. Therefore, the complaint has been filed to the precinct election commission. 
• The incident of violation of the procedures for the distribution of duties among the members of the precinct election commission has been reported at # 16 electoral precinct of # 32 Gori electoral district. The members of the precinct election commission have voluntarily distributed the duties without undertaking the respective legal procedures. The observer filed a complaint which has resulted in the repeated conduction of the polling procedures.
• The members of # 16 precinct election commission of # 32 Gori electoral district have been handed over the voters list, marking liquid and other respective materials prior to the conduction of the respective procedures for the distribution of the duties among the commission members. Observer of the “Multinational Georgia” has filed a complaint as far as the incident has not been resolved only by raising the verbal objection by the observer.

 As for the incidents resolved as a result of raising verbal objection:

• The procedural violation has been reported at # 2 electoral precinct of # 27 Mtskheta electoral district. Registrar handed over two bullets (instead of one) to the voter .The explanation letter has been drafted after the incident was challenged by the observer. The incident was resolved and the bulletin has been announced as invalid.
• There was an attempt at # 8 electoral precinct of # 32 Gori electoral district when the voter tried to vote without ID. The incident has been resolved only after the raising of verbal objection by the observer of the “Multinational Georgia”.
• There was an attempt at # 8 electoral precinct of # 32 Gori electoral district when the voter appeared at the polling station without valid ID. After the objection raised by the observer of the “Multinational Georgia” the incident was resolved.
• Observer of the “Multinational Georgia” has reported the case according to which there was not a number of voters put in the special box of the demonstration protocol at # 21 electoral precinct of # 32 Gori electoral district. This fact has been explained by the potential increment of the voters’ quantity. To this end “Multinational Georgia” has address the Central Election Commission to obtain its explanations over the incident. The Central Election Commission has promised that the incident would be resolved and the special instructions would be issued to the respective electoral commissions.

 6 Call Center Operators are engaged at the head office of the “Multinational Georgia” to enter and process the findings as obtained from the program deployed observers into the elections data base. The Call Center is specially organized to obtain electoral shortcomings on a regular base which could hamper the conduction of the elections in a democratic manner.  

Every citizen can independently report the electoral shortcomings or any elections related incidents to the Hot Line of the “Multinational Georgia” which will be functional throughout the Election Day to allow the processing as well as delivery of the respective measures to mitigate the violation of the electoral law. The program is legally assisted by the lawyer of the “Multinational Georgia”.

The elections monitoring program is financially supported by the Delegation of the European Union to Georgia, Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Open Society Georgian Foundation (OSGF) and National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

 The content of the press release and other special announcements made by the “Multinational Georgia” might not reflect the opinion of the donor organizations.

 The next media statement of the “Multinational Georgia” will be made at 18:30 at the Media Center regarding the procedural violations to be revealed during vote casting process.

Thank you for your attention!

Press-service

2015-11-27 11:13:38| | 6917