Mess in Voter Lists Triggers Mutual Accusations
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| Experts say Interior Ministry, previous CEC are to blame for mess in voter lists. |
Inaccuracies in the lists threaten fair elections as thousands of eligible voters are still missing from the voter lists. If the corrections are not made urgently, thousands of voters, especially in the capital city of Tbilisi would be deprived of their constitutional right to cast a vote.
Legal expert David Usupashvili, Lasha Tughushi of the Anticorruption Council and Gocha Tskitishvili of the Institute for Polling and Marketing (IPM) launched an investigation on October 24 in the process of development of the voter lists.
Development of the voter lists underwent three stages. Initially, the Interior Ministry launched drafting of the lists in June, under the supervision of by then-President’s parliamentary secretary Mariam Tsatsanashvili. Afterwards, the lists were delivered to the old Central Election Commission. The latter delivered the lists to the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) – a Washington-based non-governmental organization contracted by the Georgian government to computerize voter lists.
David Usupashvili, Lasha Tughushi and Gocha Tskitishvili held meetings on October 24-25 at the Interior Ministry, the Central Election Commission and with the IFES representatives. Despite revealing numerous violations in the lists, the experts fail to name particular persons, guilty of making inaccurate lists. However they are confident that the Interior Ministry and the old CEC should bear responsibility.
“We found numerous deliberately done inaccuracies in the voter lists, which were delivered to the Central Election Commission from the Interior Ministry. These inaccuracies were done deliberately to pave the way to ballot fraud,” legal expert Davit Usupashvili said at a news briefing on October 27 at the Elections Media Center.
He said that it is up to the General Prosecutor’s Office to investigate who was behind what seems to be a potential fraud in election lists.
The Interior Ministry dismisses accusations and casts doubt over the conclusions of the group of experts. “I consider this accusation groundless. We simply provided the census records to the Central Election Commission and we don’t know who rigged the lists. The investigation should reveal it. So, it is not correct to blame us for making inaccurate voter lists,” Deputy Interior Minister Davit Todua told Civil Georgia.
Chief of the Information Department of the Interior Ministry Avtandil Jashi told Civil Georgia that the inaccuracies in the lists occur deliberately, however “not in the Interior Ministry.”
The group of experts also cast doubts over the activity of the old Central Election Commission, which kept the voter lists, delivered by the Interior Ministry, for more than a month. Davit Usupashvili says that the term of voter lists’ delivery was violated. Particularly, CEC failed to deliver lists to the IFES in time. As Davit Usupashvili says, the lists were kept from July 3 to August 15 in the Central Election Commission under unknown conditions. “So we don’t know what has been done with the lists in CEC,” he added.
Nana Devdariani, the new CEC chairperson, who was appointed on the post on September 1, also suggested the previous CEC may have been responsible for the inaccuracies in the voter lists.
“The Interior Ministry’s voter lists were in the old CEC for more than a month. It is really interesting what happened during this time,” Devdariani said. “In any case, we are witnessing sabotage and a detailed investigation should be conducted to reveal the role of the old CEC in this,” she added.
It seems that the authorities, who want to disclaim responsibility for mess in voter lists, try to involve the IFES in the controversy over the voter lists. Levan Mamaladze, one of the leaders of the presidential-backed election bloc For New Georgia, admitted violations by the Interior Ministry, however added that “the lists were finally computerized by the IFES and probably the mistakes were made just there.” The IFES categorically denies that the lists were altered at the data base center, where all the data entry process was being carried out.
On October 27 the national data center ceased functioning, since the CEC and the political parties agreed to reject the computerized voter lists and rely fully on the hardcopies of the lists. The corrections in hardcopies will be made at the polling stations.