Georgian opposition parties and local election monitoring groups say they are working to gather evidence of a large-scale rigging scheme that allegedly led to the shock victory of the ruling Georgian Dream party in October’s parliamentary elections.
According to the official results, Georgian Dream won 53.9 percent of the vote, compared to total 37.8 percent for the four opposition forces that passed the 5 percent threshold. The data, released by the Central Election Commission, shows significant gains for Georgian Dream compared to the 2020 elections. The results, which came amid allegations of fraud, surprised government critics after the ruling party’s anti-democratic and anti-Western moves led to a widespread belief that Georgian Dream had lost some of its support.
The official results and reports of campaign and election day violations led opposition parties to declare that the official results did not reflect the will of the voters and that the vote was illegitimate. President Salome Zurabishvili refused to recognize the official results, calling the elections a “Russian special operation” and calling on supporters to rally on October 28 to protect their votes.
Now, major opposition parties and local observer missions say they are preparing evidence of election fraud.
Hours after the polls closed on October 26, the My Vote coalition, which unites dozens of Georgian civil society organizations to deploy the largest on-the-ground monitoring mission during the 2024 elections, made a statement saying it had uncovered a “grand scheme” to rig the 2024 parliamentary elections.
The final statement of the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), a key Georgian election watchdog, was also critical. “The body of fundamental violations identified on the election day and during the campaign directly affected the expression of voters’ free will and election results,” ISFED Head Nino Dolidze wrote on Facebook.
According to Dolidze, violations that could have affected the outcome included ballot stuffing; multiple voting; violations of the voter marking process, “which is indicative of a carousel”; restrictions on full observation of the verification machines, which made it impossible for observers to monitor the registration process; “unprecedented” levels of vote buying outside polling stations; verbal and physical confrontations; expulsion of observers from polling stations, including with insults; mobilization of voters outside the precincts, collection of personal data and control of voters’ will; serious violations of the secrecy of the vote; procedural violations in the management of mobile ballot boxes; restriction of the right to vote in overseas precincts, and others.
Later on October 28, My Vote detailed a complex and sophisticated alleged scheme that must have helped the government rig the election. The scheme allegedly included a well-organized “carousel” in which individuals voted multiple times in different precincts using different ID information with the help of ruling party-loyal registrars. This was aided by the faulty application of marking fluid to suspected individuals, the deliberate prevention of independent observers from observing the voter verification process, and a generally hostile attitude toward independent observers in order to avoid detection.
The alleged scheme prompted My Vote to seek the annulment of ballots cast in precincts with up to a total of 300,000 voters.
“Technological Special Operation”
The allegations of Election Day violations follow a long campaign with continuous reports of the use of administrative resources, voter pressure and intimidation by the ruling party, as well as pressure on civil society and the opposition, and controversial legislative and procedural changes that undermined the credibility of the election administration.
That was also noted by international observation missions, including OSCE/ODIHR, which stressed that “reports of pressure on voters, particularly on public sector employees, remained widespread in the campaign,” which, coupled with extensive tracking of voters on election day, “raised concerns about the ability of some voters to cast their vote without fear of retribution.”
But over the past two days, there have also been growing suspicions that the government may have used electronic voting technologies to rig the election. Electronic voting, which was used in up to 90 percent of precincts, included technology installed at the polling station to verify voters and count votes, but critics fear that the verification machines may have been misused – particularly amid reports that observers were often prevented from properly monitoring the verification process.
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“The operation of verification machines and the lists uploaded to them require special attention. We are working on that,” said ISFED’s Dolidze. ISFED refused to publish the results of the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) this year, arguing that while the PVT was in line with the official results, it couldn’t be a valid measure against the backdrop of alleged violations. In an interview with Civil.ge conducted days before the vote, Dolidze said that electronic voting technologies still left risks for multiple voting by the same person or casting a ballot for someone else.
Nika Gvaramia, leader of the opposition Coalition for Change, in his October 27 briefing called the elections an “usurpation of power,” a Russian “special technological operation” that he said was impossible for opposition parties or observers to control. According to Gvaramia, the opposition was not allowed access when the government audited the electronic machines used in the 2024 vote.
Other opposition parties, including the United National Movement, also expressed concern about the operation of the electronic machines and called for a probe. The For Georgia party, led by ex-Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, says it has enough evidence of ID card manipulation to prompt a prosecutor’s investigation.
#IWITNESSEDFRAUD
Allegations mount as various footage and reports make rounds on social media under #IWITNESSEDFRAUD (#მევნახეგაყალბება) hashtag, pointing at various schemes of possible election fraud.
Various observers allege in the uploaded material, among others, cases of citizens coming to the polling stations to find out someone already voted on their behalf (1, 2, 3); persons who had undergone marking procedure allowed to precincts; observers having to do their job in hostile environments, often with pro-government commission members and representatives from obscure election watchdogs dominating the precincts while groups of men hanging out outside the precincts allegedly controlling voter behavior, including with special lists.
There were also widespread reports of breaches of voter secrecy, including because the marker left traces on the back of the ballot, making it easy for commission members to see the choice as voters tried to insert it into automatic ballot boxes; reports of suspicious schemes by groups outside precincts, possibly giving voters passports before entering precincts; other uploaded material included videos of physical confrontations, ballot stuffing, etc.
Various data scientists also indicated in the official results irregularities in voting patterns typical to rigging elections.