Interim parliamentary, mayoral elections to be held in Georgia tomorrow

Interim parliamentary and mayoral elections will be held on Sunday, with voters set to elect a majoritarian member of the Parliament in Gori and Kaspi, as well as the mayor of Gurjaani, using an electronic voting system, the Central Election Commission said on Saturday.

Natia Ioseliani, the Central Election Commission’s Spokesperson, highlighted the “particular importance” of these elections in the modernisation process and noted it would give the CEC the opportunity to test the electronic technologies before the 2024 parliamentary elections.

Modernisation of elections - the introduction of electronic technologies is the most important stage in the history of our country, and all parties involved can contribute to the successful implementation of this process”, Ioseliani added and called on all involved parties to help raise voters’ awareness in this direction.

She also noted that the Commission had conducted “a large-scale, active informational and educational campaign” to inform voters about electronic voting.

The electronic voting will be underway at 103 polling stations out of the total of 133, Ioseliani said, noting that at the remaining 30 stations the elections would be held using the existing procedure and ballot papers would be digitised. 

Electronic voting devices are not connected to the internet network and therefore there is no threat of cyber interference, the CEC Spokesperson said, adding manual vote counting would also be provided to ensure “transparency and reliability”.

The members of the relevant election commissions have undergone several stages of training in the direction of legislative innovations and the use of electronic technologies, and they are ready to serve the voters at a high professional level”, Ioseliani emphasised.

16 international observers and 426 local observers are set to monitor the elections, with 158 representatives of media organisations covering the election process.