Process of Opening the Polling Stations and Voting for the Presidential Elections of October 27, as of 11:00 am
The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) is monitoring the presidential elections throughout Georgia, in all the electoral districts. The ISFED’s observation mission consists of 1,200 accredited and trained observers for the presidential elections of 2013, who have been deployed to precinct, district and central election commissions. There are also 73 mobile teams throughout the country.
ISFED is observing the Election Day with an internationally recognized and statistically reliable Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) methodology, which enables us to detect violation in time, systematically evaluate the Election Day process and verify the results announced by the CEC. ISFED has been observing elections since 1995. Besides, the organization has carried out all the observation missions based on the PVT methodology since 2003.
As of now, the ISFED presents information about opening the polling stations and the starting the process of voting.
Key Findings
Based on the information provided by ISFED’s PVT observers, the opening process has improved as compared to the 2012 Parliamentary Elections. In 100% of polling stations, observers were allowed to monitor. This is an improvement from 2012 when the number of observers allowed to monitor was 98%. In 96% of polling stations, the election administration was ready to receive voters by 8:00am. In 2012, 91% of stations were ready by 8:00am. There have been questions about the transparency of the votes cast via the mobile ballot box in the past. And so, we welcome the fact that the average number of registered voters in the mobile ballot box list is 16 voters which is smaller than the elections in 2012. The average number of registered voters for mobile box voting was 21 in the 2012 Parliamentary Elections. ISFED has observed that the maximum number of registered voters in the mobile ballot box list is approximately 200. This maximum is significantly smaller than the maximum in 2012 (300 voters).
Detailed Information from the PVT
• ISFED has received reports on the opening process from 100% of their PVT observers;
• In 99.8% of polling stations, observers were free to assess the quality of the opening process;
• In a very tiny percentage of polling stations (1.3%), there were procedural problems with the setup and opening. Examples of such procedural problems are listed in the Violations section below.
• There has been a reduction in the average number of registered voters in the general list. The average in this election is 965 whereas the average in 2012 was 986.
Violations
As of now, the ISFED observers have reported:
• Three facts of presence of unauthorized people at polling stations #23 (Dedoplistskaro), #11 and #36 (Kaspi);
• Two cases of improper documentation in the official materials at polling stations #6 (Batumi) and #76 (Saburtalo);
• Two cases of procedural violations of opening process at polling stations #72 (Rustavi) and #24 (Gori);
• Two cases of improper processing of control sheets at polling stations #65 (Kutaisi) and #5 (Isani).
As of now, the ISFED observers have filed six complaints to the election commissions.
Together with the partner NGOs, ISFED reports election violations to, and maps their location on, their web-portal - www.electionsportal.ge. Any citizen can send information about electoral violations by sending a free SMS to the number 90039.
ISFED’s observers report information to the Data Analysis Center in Tbilisi via short text messages (SMSs), phone calls, and tablet PCs. The Data Analysis Center is comprised of 20 data operators, 15 lawyers, and the staff of the Central Office.
ISFED reminds the voters that they should have with them one of the three documents listed below in order to participate in voting:
Personal Identification Card of a Georgian citizen;
Passport of a citizen of Georgia;
IDP certificate (together with an ID Card).
ISFED calls upon all eligible voters in Georgia to participate in the elections and to freely exercise their right to vote.
ISFED will make the next announcement at 14:30.