Public Defender backs voters’ participation in elections with non-electronic ID cards
Ioseliani said the right to vote was guaranteed by the Constitution. Photo: Public Defender’s press office
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Georgian Public Defender Levan Ioseliani on Thursday said he backed enabling voters to participate in elections with non-electronic identification cards, in response to claims by domestic opposition groups that said the prospect could allow the Government to “rig” votes.
The controversy over the topic was sparked after the Parliament on Wednesday approved with its first reading amendments proposed by opposition MP Pridon Injia to allow use of non-electronic ID cards ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.
In his comments, Ioseliani said the right to vote was guaranteed by the Constitution and “this right cannot be limited”, adding voters “should participate with the [identification] documents they have”. He also urged the public to replace non-electronic IDs with modern identification documents.
Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Thursday slammed the Georgian representation of the United States-based International Republican Institute for its “history of publishing incorrect election polls” over the past 12 years, after the release of the IRI’s new survey that put GD approval in Georgia at 25 percent ahead of next year’s parliamentary elections.
A public opinion poll published on Tuesday by the Tbilisi-based Georgian Opinion Research Business International has put the approval rating of the ruling Georgian Dream party at 55 percent.
Kakha Kaladze, the Secretary General of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Monday said the five percent election threshold would remain “unchanged” for next year’s parliamentary elections, amid demands by domestic opposition groups to decrease it to two percent.
Giorgi Kalandarishvili, the Chair of the Central Election Commission of Georgia, said the interim parliamentary and mayoral elections across the country on Sunday had “proved” the “readiness” of the election administration, voters and the public for electronic voting.
Irakli Kobakhidze, the head of the ruling Georgian Dream party, on Friday said all identification cards issued before 2011, prior to the introduction of electronic IDs across the country, would lose their legal validity.
Georgian Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili on Monday rejected a new report by the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy on electronic voting machines to be used in the 2024 parliamentary elections across the country as “totally manipulative and speculative”.