Georgian PM: ISFED reported “only” 25 cases of violation of voting secrecy out of 700,000 voters

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Thursday said the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy had recorded “only” 25 cases of violations of secrecy of voting out of 700,000 voters during Saturday’s parliamentary elections.

Violation of secrecy of voting was observed in nine percent of polling stations. This means that out of 1,000 observed precincts, about 90 experienced violations of vote secrecy. Now what is important - 700,000 voters cover about 1,000 polling stations, I am talking about active voters. Roughly 700,000 voters voted in these 1,000 polling stations”, Kobakhidze said in an interview with an Imedi TV live programme.

Now you are wondering what is the number of this ‘total violation’ of the voting secrecy, especially considering that there were eight commission members and roughly the same number of observers, including representatives from non-governmental organisations, TV stations, and other organisations at each polling station - everyone was there”, he continued.

Out of the 700,000 voters, ISFED documented 25 cases of violations of voting secrecy. How they could calculate nine percent, this reflects a lack of competence [in the assessment]. [Reported] nine percent is 90 polling stations, while only 25 violations were recorded by ISFED representatives”, the Prime Minister added.

Discussing the ISFED election report, Kobakhidze mentioned they could “no longer manipulate the data from the parallel vote counting and as a result, they no longer wished to publish the results”.

They do not want to call the legitimate elections its true name. Prior to this, there were multiple cases of double voting [...]. There were two cases and a criminal case was immediately initiated in the first out of these two, which involved a representative from [the ruling] Georgian Dream party and the individual was promptly brought to justice and arrested”, he said.

In the second case, an individual was caught holding ballots marked with the Lelo [for Georgia party] number. In total, there were two cases. In terms of multiple voting attempts, there were four instances recorded where one person attempted to vote twice, although these attempts were ultimately prevented. No one actually voted twice; they merely tried”, Kobakhidze added.

Regarding the marking procedure, the PM claimed violations were detected in 16 cases out of a total of 1,000 polling stations, adding “this means that in 16 out of 700,000 voters, a member of the commission either forgot to apply the marking liquid or did not utilise the marking device adequately”.

Kobakhidze also noted there were 11 cases recorded involving the restriction of observers’ rights or their expulsion from areas with “no clarification given about the behaviour of the observers in those cases”.

In total, there were 16 instances where more than one ballot was transferred improperly, he said, adding 14 cases were related to ballot transfer issues, and eight cases involved technical problems with the voting devices.

Additionally, there were five instances in which the ballot boxes were not correctly positioned in the polling stations, and four cases of improper document voting were identified, the Prime Minister clarified.