The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) has released a preliminary report on the outcomes of the local elections that took place on October 21. According to the report, the government has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the electoral register.
The leading organizations that have been actively involved in verifying the electoral registers are the Ministry of Justice and the Public Service Development Agency.
The report states: “Through their due diligence, the government managed to enhance the quality of the electoral registers. In general, stakeholders have confidence in the reliability of the electoral registers and the voters’ registration process.”
For many years, the Public Service Development Agency of the Ministry of Justice has been actively engaged in clarifying the potential voters’ register, specifically:
Since 2012, the Agency has been actively working to identify and address gaps in databases in order to provide the Central Election Commission with the most comprehensive identification data on citizens for voter registration purposes. At present, there is data on 3 496 461 individuals in the potential voters’ register. Of this number, 2 675 125 individuals are presented with biometric photos in the register, indicating that the data for this number of individuals is reliable. In 2012, only 778 207 individuals had such information in the electoral register. Since 2013, following the initiative of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia, electronic identity cards have been provided free of charge or at discounted rates to 1 365 478 individuals (1 174 614 individuals received them free of charge).
The Public Service Development Agency initiated the “Electoral Register Improvement Project – 3” in October 2016, one year prior to the elections. As part of this project, several measures were taken to compile a high-quality electoral register. To complete the electoral registers, the Agency has worked in several areas, namely:
• Identification and recording of deaths – 1961 death records were drafted and deceased individuals (including those who had died abroad and in occupied territories) were removed from the citizens’ database;
• Informing individuals registered without an address – telephone communications were made with 10 070 individuals registered without an address. 1 038 individuals took advantage of this service;
• Informing individuals with invalid documents and those who have been deregistered – the Agency implemented the function of sending SMS notifications to individuals who have been deregistered and holders of invalid documents to inform them about the reasons for deregistration, cancellation/suspension of document validity and free services available at the Agency. A total of 26 455 SMS notifications were sent. 85 882 holders of invalid documents and 2 354 deregistered individuals took advantage of these services.
• Reduction of records with no photographs and low-quality photographs in the database – 228 records have been restored;
• Issuance of documents at no cost– During the period of project implementation, the Ministry of Justice of Georgia initiated the free issuance of 89 274 identity documents, helping citizens to solve various problems related to inclusion in the electoral register.
The Election Observation Mission of the OSCE/ODIHR began its work on September 13 and released a preliminary report on its assessment of the measures taken by the government regarding the election process of October 21.
