Tampering in Ajaria Polls Widespread and Blatant

Ajaria remains under the control of Aslan Abashidze and his Union for Georgia's Democratic Revival. [For background, see the Eurasia Insight archive]. We expected local authorities to secure for Revival the seven percent showing it needed to gain in Georgia's proportional parliamentary system. They did not disappoint.

My team, which included a Canadian observer, worked in the Kobuleti district along the shore of the Black Sea. We covered the southern portion of the district, which included the city of Chakvi, just south of Kobuleti, and rural stations east of the city. Our day began at 7:30 am at precinct 14 along Chavki's main road. We observed Precinct Election Commission (PEC) members frantically set up the polling station for opening around 8:15 am.

To be fair, the process was elaborate, and most commissions seemed organized and knowledgeable. A voter would arrive at the station, presumably with some form of identification; often times an "invitation to vote" card that had been distributed earlier in the week sufficed. To get to the polling machine, a citizen must sign the voter list three times for each respective ballot: one for the majoritarian vote, one for the proportional vote, and one for the referendum on reducing the Georgian parliament's size to 150 members. Two commission members then sign the back of each ballot, and the voter enters the voting booth.

Once the vote was completed, a voter then placed each ballot in an envelope, which was stamped and signed by another commission member. Finally, a voter was "marked" with ink on the thumb and allowed to place their stamped envelope in the transparent ballot box. A hand-held ultraviolet lamp allowed commission workers to confirm whether or not a voter had already voted. This was an elaborate system designed to enhance transparency. But few officials checked voters with the ultraviolet lamp as they entered the polling station, thus undermining the marking process.

We left precinct 14 shortly after the day started and moved to precinct 15. Here, the day's trends became obvious. We were greeted by local authorities, who would walk in and out of the polling station. Within minutes of our arrival, my partner and I observed one voter stuff three envelopes in the ballot box. Shortly thereafter, a voter entered and reentered the polling station to vote three times in the roughly 30 minutes we were there. Two flagrant violations, and it was not even 9 am.

We proceeded to precinct 38, where again the organization of the polling station was commendable. After talking with the commission chairman, we noticed that a voter had two copies of each ballot. He quickly reprimanded the PEC members who had given the extra copy. When pressed as to why any voter would get two ballots, he called it a "mistake." Not surprisingly, when we returned later in the evening, he mentioned that that was an isolated incident and had not occurred again.

Interestingly, Ajaria seemed largely devoid of observers from the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, who worked diligently throughout the country. We met some members of the Georgian Young Lawyers Association, but more common domestic observers were students from Batumi State University or simply "independent observers" that had received their accreditation a few days earlier. It did not take long to realize that these "independent" observers were Revival party officials. We never saw their "party" cards, but PEC chairmen, almost exclusively from Revival, often deferred to these individuals when answering questions. They often tried to monopolize us upon our arrival.

Some of these "observers" actively took part in the voting process. For instance, at precinct 14 one escorted voters to the voting booths and often went in with them. Nobody from the commission tried to stop this while we watched; it is perhaps notable that this observer-guide initially told us he belonged to the commission.

At around noon we drove north to the Kobuleti district election commission to deliver our preliminary assessments and then headed to rural towns east of Chakvi. We proceeded along severely pockmarked and winding paths of the Ajarian hills, around wandering cows and pigs, in a ten-year-old Volga. Some precincts were simply beyond the car's reach.

They were beyond most voters' reach, too: at precinct 32 we did not see one voter. People at these rural precincts swayed us with warm hospitality. But some genial hosts were evidently "independent" (i.e. Revival party), and local officials often steered us away from the local commission chairman. We also saw the deputy chairman of precinct 33 stuff several envelopes in the ballot box.

When we went to monitor precinct 13's vote count, people took our presence more seriously. The count was as efficient as anything I'd seen in the state of Virginia, but the process was less heartening. After the preliminary count, the chairman ordered us to leave so they could complete the protocol (i.e., the official vote count). We explained that according to Article 70 of the Unified Election Code we were entitled to observe the compilation of the results.

The chairman began to make frantic phone calls. Party officials and local authorities arrived after the rough count. Eventually, the commission chairman, deputy, and secretary left the precinct for approximately one hour. When they returned all local authorities and party officials had left, and the protocol was completed. We took a copy of the protocol and accompanied the ballots, voter lists, etc. to Kobuleti. When we arrived at 4 am, we noticed that the chairman had completed only one protocol sheet. We learned the next day that commission chairmen were completing their lists at the central office, from memory or from pre-determined results.

Our colleagues told more outrageous stories. One team recalled how the lights went out during the count, at which time several hundred more envelopes fell onto the table making it impossible to know which were valid. Another OSCE team found workers in a back room filling out and stamping ballots to ensure that the turnout- like the brashness of violations- would exceed expectations.