Voters, election watchdogs, and opposition parties have raised alarms about a mass breach of secrecy in the 2024 general election, arguing that the new way of casting a ballot in electronic voting precincts made voters’ choices visible to other people. This is just one of the types of grave violations that observers say had a significant impact on the election results.
Based on these allegations, the Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association (GYLA), which monitored the elections, is seeking to have the election results in all electronic precincts – 90 percent of the total 3,111 precincts – annulled. Other observers also accuse the Central Election Commission of falsely claiming before the vote that secrecy had been ensured.
The parliamentary elections of October 26, 2024 were the first elections in Georgia to be held with largely electronic voting. Electronic voting involves installing machines at polling stations to verify voters and count votes.
It also provides for a new way of voting: according to the traditional voting procedure, voters circled their preferred party in the voting booth, mostly with a pen, folded the ballot, put it in an envelope and then in a ballot box. In the new “electronic” procedure, on the other hand, the voter fills in a circle near the preferred party with a black marker, puts it in a special folder without folding it (preferably with the ballot upside down), goes to an electronic ballot box supervised by a commission member, and inserts it while the machine automatically ejects and absorbs the paper.
Election day was preceded by an intense campaign that the vote in a new procedure was secret, amid reports that the ruling Georgian Dream party was intimidating voters by claiming otherwise.
However, after casting their ballots on election day, many voters complained that the marker left traces on the back of the ballot and that those in the polling station could easily see and assume the voter’s choice, even if the ballot was upside down. The risk was higher if the machine didn’t pick up the ballot on the first try and/or voters needed help from polling officials (problems with ballot secrecy were also reported by Civil.ge staff). The ballot included 18 parties running in the 2024 elections, with the ruling Georgian Dream party listed as number 41 at the bottom of the ballot. The position of Georgian Dream made it easy for outside observers to determine whether a person was voting for the ruling party or the opposition.
Citing the problem, GYLA announced on October 30 that it would seek to annul all 2,263 precincts where electronic voting was used.
GYLA also presented evidence of an official letter from the Central Election Commission, dated September 28 and signed by CEC head Giorgi Kalandarishvili. In the letter, Kalandarishvili assures that the secrecy of the ballot would be protected. The letter reportedly came in response to concerns raised by the watchdog representatives after they discovered the problem during CEC training sessions.
“If [the question] is about the marker that the voter uses to cast a vote, the ballot used during the meetings is a test version, and therefore the quality of the ballot used on election day will be different, ensuring the protection of secrecy,” the letter reads.
Other observers have increasingly pointed to the same premise, including those representing the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), a major election watchdog in Georgia. According to ISFED head Nino Dolidze, the watchdog’s representatives “also registered the problem of the thickness of the ballot and the trace of a marker on the back,” but received the response from the CEC representative that it was a test version and that a different paper would be used during the elections.
The CEC responded to the allegations in the October 30 briefing by arguing that the printing of the ballots had been observed by local and international monitoring missions, and that special envelopes in which the ballots are placed before being inserted into the counting machines “if the ballot is correctly placed” were thick enough to fully ensure secrecy.
The concerns follow widespread reports of voter intimidation before and on election day by the ruling Georgian Dream party, as well as mounting allegations that authorities may have misused electronic voting technology to rig the election. Independent watchdogs have also pointed at other violations of vote secrecy, including installing cameras in polling stations, some of which captured views of sensitive areas such as registration desks, verification machines, voting booths, and the main ballot box.
The opposition and President Salome Zurabishvili refused to recognize the legitimacy of the elections, while the international community and international observer missions have yet to declare the elections free and fair and have called for reports of violations to be investigated.
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Also Read:
- 30/10/2024 – International Reactions to Results of the Parliamentary Elections in Georgia
- 30/10/2024 – My Vote Demands Annulment of Results in 246 Election Precincts Citing “Grave Violations”
- 30/10/2024 – Prosecutor Launches Investigation into Election Fraud Allegations, Summons President for Questioning