Central Election Commission: all steps taken to prevent imbalance in summaries of election results
The Georgian Central Election Commission says that the October 2 municipal elections were held in line with democratic standards. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge.
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The Georgian Central Election Commission (CEC) says that the October 2 municipal elections in Georgia have been held in line with democratic standards and that they have taken all measures to prevent imbalances between ballots cast and signatures of registered voters.
The imbalance in summaries of election results during last year’s parliamentary elections caused controversy which later turned out to be a mistake of the International Society of Fair Elections and Democracy in its parallel vote count data.
The CEC says that several political parties have tried to use the issue for speculation even after the recent municipal race.
We have used a number of tools to prevent the misbalance,” the CEC says, adding that in total 570 election summary papers have been corrected.
239 of the 570 corrected result papers were related to the proportional part of the elections, while the remaining others involved majoritarian and mayoral races,” the CEC said.
The CEC explained that voters on special lists, like prisoners, were able to vote in only the proportional part of the election, or the mayor and majoritarian part.
#CEC’s chairperson assesses October 2 #Elections.
— CEC of Georgia (@cecgovge) October 3, 2021
The election administration keeps working for holding the second round of elections in line with #high #standards, as well.
More details: https://t.co/4GaSNcqEAF pic.twitter.com/OC9S01xOzb
Thus, unlike other voters they did not receive three ballot papers (which could have become the reason for the disbalance in summary papers),” the CEC said.
Municipal elections are held in Georgia per a mixed electoral system. Voters have to fill three ballot papers: the first ballot paper is for mayoral candidates (which are elected per a 50%+1 system). The winner is the candidate who will receive at least 50%+1 of the vote, otherwise a second round of elections will be held).
The second ballot paper is for majoritarian candidates in city assemblies (The winner must receive more than 40 per cent of votes in the first round of elections to win the race, otherwise a second round of elections will be held).
The third ballot paper is for parties - they will need at least 2.5% of the vote to receive seats in Tbilisi City Assembly and 3% in other city assemblies across the country.
According to recent changes to the electoral code, 40 members in the 50-member Tbilisi City Assembly are elected per the proportional electoral system, while the remaining 10 per the majoritarian electoral system (previously the share stood at 25/25).
Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili says that the local elections in Georgia were ‘calm, fair, secure, and competitive’ without significant violations despite the difficult political and polarised electoral environment.
The OSCE/ODIHR mission, which has monitored the October 2 municipal elections in Georgia, says that the elections ‘were generally well-administered but held against the backdrop of a protracted political crisis and characterised by hardened polarisation.’
The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) has released the results of a parallel vote tabulation (PVT) of the proportional elections for Tbilisi and regional cities, which says that the ruling Georgian Dream party received 46.6% of the vote, while the United National Movement received 31.1% of the vote.
The head of the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) Elene Nizharadze has resigned following a mistake in ISFED’s parallel vote count data. ISFED admitted to the mistake in its data of the parallel vote count earlier in December, while the data has been used by opposition parties for several weeks as evidence that the ‘October 31 parliamentary elections were fabricated’ by the ruling Georgian Dream party and the Central Election Commission. ISFED board members said that Nizharadze’s resignation came after consultations and a broad consensus in the NGO.