According to the Central Election Commission reports, the number of voters on the election roll grew from 3 518 877 as shown in the final tally of the first round of Presidential elections on October 28, to 3 528 658, thus growing by 9 781 voters.
CEC Spokesperson Ana Mikeladze told Civil.ge, that there are several reasons for such growth:
- Addition of those people who turned 18 after October 28 and thus got their right to vote;
- Additional registration of individuals abroad;
- Those people who got their IDs, or restored their invalidated ID between the two rounds.
While she declined to specify the number of new voters under each category. Civil.ge looked into available statistics, which reveal that:
- According to the data of the State Statistics Office, there were 3 478 live births in November 2000 – which allows to estimate the magnitude of the new voters that turned 18.
- A look at the CEC’s own data shows, that the number of voters registered abroad grew by 134.
- Logically, the rest are the voters that were added to the list as a result of them claiming new or restoring their damaged IDs.
If we compare the growth in the number of voters to the historical data, the election roll grew only by 4 993 voters between the 2016 Parliamentary and 2018 Presidential elections, almost two times less than in the four-week period between the two rounds of the current, 2018 polls. CEC Spokesperson declined comment on this difference, simply saying that the election roll changes constantly, depending on above variables.
Significantly, during the first round of 2018 polls, the two front-runners, Salome Zurabishvili and Grigol Vashadze were separated by 0.9% of the votes, that is 14 348 ballots, and he race promises to be tight in the second round, too.
Controversial context
On November 20, three major watchdogs reported a whistle-blower allegation that fake IDs are being printed to allow for multiple voting in favor of the ruling party candidate. The government agencies vehemently deny the allegation, accusing watchdogs of pushing the opposition agenda and promise to sue them in court.
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