The chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), Giorgi Kalandarishvili, announced the successful integration of electronic technologies in Georgia’s election process following the October 26 elections.

“The nearly two years of dedicated work by the election administration have produced positive results. We are proud to announce that the planning and organization of the election process were successfully executed at all stages.

To support this, I will provide some statistical data. On election day, October 26, a total of 15,000 voting machines were in use, with only 20 machines out of order. Despite this, we were able to continue the election process without reverting to traditional voting methods at any polling station.

According to established best practices, a failure rate of 1% for voting machines is considered acceptable. Our failure rate was around 0.1%, which is excellent,” Kalandarishvili stated.

He expressed gratitude to the election administration staff for their professionalism and contribution to modernizing the electoral process.

“The effective operation of electronic technologies was confirmed by the international audit firm Pro V&V, which has extensive experience in the USA and is accredited by relevant institutions. Pro V&V not only tests voting systems but also issues licenses to vendor companies that implement various technologies.

I recently met with representatives from Pro V&V, who provided us with an audit report for the first and second stages, confirming the proper functioning of the devices. This report will be translated and shared with all stakeholders, including international organizations. It addresses all questions, including unfounded allegations of duplicates in the unified voter list. These claims are baseless for several reasons: there is a paper trail, the lists were printed from verification machines, and they were publicly accessible. Political parties and watchdog organizations can request and verify the public version of the lists from the administration at any time.

Today, the American company reiterated that the concerns regarding voter lists are unfounded and confirmed that the technologies used comply with both local legislation and international best practices.

I would like to extend a special thanks to Smartmatic, which partnered with us in modernizing the elections. Smartmatic has a proven track record in over 30 countries, including the USA, Canada, Estonia, and Belgium,” Kalandarishvili added.

He noted that public awareness campaigns conducted a year and a half prior to the elections helped voters adapt to the new technologies effectively. Kalandarishvili thanked voters for their participation and civic responsibility.