The OSCE/ODIHR Observation Mission published an interim report regarding the local self-government elections scheduled for October 2 of this year.
The report once again positively evaluates the activities conducted by LEPL Public Service Development Agency of the Ministry of Justice in order to improve the voters’ database, as was done in previous years.
The document draws particular attention to the efforts of the Public Service Development Agency of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia in improving the electoral registers, which, similar to previous years, have been positively assessed.
“Through the efforts of the Public Service Development Agency, the accuracy of the database has been enhanced by proactively eliminating duplicate and deceased persons’ data from the system, providing citizens with documents at no cost and conducting visits to citizens’ residences to obtain/update photographs and biometric information.
As noted by the Observation Mission in the same report:
• As a result of active efforts to identify facts of deaths of Georgian citizens, the Agency removed the data of over 11 400 individuals from the electoral registers;
• Call center operators from the Public Service Development Agency reached out to more than 410 000 citizens via phone to correct errors in the electronic database.
In order to assess the pre-election landscape, representatives from the Election Observation Mission of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights held meetings with officials from governmental agencies, political parties, media outlets, civil society groups and international organizations in September of this year.
According to the report, most stakeholders who interacted with members of the mission expressed satisfaction with the accuracy of the electoral registers.
