Transparencia Electoral published a statement on Georgia’s 2024 Parliamentary Elections.

The statement reads as follows:

“Last Saturday, October 26th, Parliamentary Elections were held in Georgia, where 150 members of Parliament were elected with nearly a 60% turnout. Transparencia Electoral deployed a short-term delegation to follow the elections, composed of Eduardo Repilloza-Fernandez, Director General, and Marcelo Peregrino Ferreira, International Relations Coordinator.

During their visit, the delegation met with Jack Cobb, representative of Pro V&V, the entity in charge of auditing the systems used on Election Day. Cobb explained the nature and details of how the Voter Identification Unit (VIU) and the Poll Count Optical Scanner (PCOS) work, a technology that is key to guarantee the transparency of the electoral process.

Prior to Election Day, the electronic voting equipment, which was used by 90% of the voters, was sent to regional warehouses for distribution to the voting centers, ensuring their custody by security forces.

The delegation also held a meeting with Giorgi Kalandarishvili, Chairman of the Central Election Commission of Georgia. The conversation focused on the importance of transparency standards maintained by the CEC during the implementation of these new systems, the first with Georgia as a candidate for membership in the European Union.

Our delegation also met with Levan Natroshvili, Deputy Executive Director of International Society for Fair Elections And Democracy (ISFED), an important domestic election monitor of Georgia that deployed over 1,500 observers on Election Day, and with representatives of the Public Movement Multinational of Georgia (“PMMG”), an NGO dedicated to the promotion and protection of the rights of ethnic minorities in the country, including civil and political rights.

On Election Day, our delegation toured a sample of polling stations in Tbilisi to observe the functioning of the technology implemented in the electoral process.

Regarding these technological solutions, both the international and domestic electoral missions reported that the political actors had agreed on the advantages it would bring and that it worked correctly during Election Day.

The CEC made a major effort to implement electoral technology to improve the transparency and efficiency of the elections. Authorities configured 7,508 voter identification units, 4,876 optical precinct counting scanners and 2,263 tablets.

It was reported that 99.86% of the 14,647 technological devices worked correctly. Per the reports gathered by the delegation and the sample observed, technical assistance was available to solve problems that arose during Election Day.

Transparencia Electoral has also followed events after Election Day and analyzed reports from other delegations (national and international) that carried out long-term electoral observation, in which they warned that in the pre-electoral phase, legislation was passed by Parliament aimed at restricting the work of civil society organizations and public resources were used in favor of the ruling party.

Although Transparencia Electoral did not have the time and resources to conduct a pre-electoral study, the organization considers these complaints and allegations should be responsibly and formally presented through Georgian institutional channels.

The CEC’s decision to recount 12% of the voting centers, equivalent to 14% of the electoral population was a measure taken in accordance with best practices, and concluded that there was virtually no difference between the preliminary and final counts.

Transparencia Electoral urges the competent institutions to expedite the mechanisms to process and provide timely response to the complaints filed by political and civil society organizations regarding the electoral process.

The health of democracy relies to a large extent on the confidence of the actors in the Rule of Law, so those who consider that have suffered harm to their political rights must be able to count on an efficient institutional response.

Likewise, after complaints have been processed, it is essential to promote new spaces for the discussion of any possible improvements to the conditions of competitiveness and electoral integrity.

In this sense, Transparencia Electoral is able to hold encounters with the different political, institutional and civil society actors to learn their impressions and thus design administrative and legislative proposals to improve confidence in elections and institutions.

In the current context, it is essential that all actors maintain an open stance, and renew their commitment to democracy and to elections as the sole legitimate way to form Governments in the name of the People.”