Voters Delayed During Commission Members’ Lunch

Maka Malakmadze, Adjara

Polling Station # 73 in Batumi was opened in a classroom in a public school. The room was too small for voters when the process was observed by about 30 observers and party representatives. The PS was particularly noisy after it was opened.

An unregulated flow of voters, incorrectly distributed voters’ lists among five officials, issuing of 4 sorts of ballot papers and conversation between voters, commission members and observers caused noise in the PS. Due to these circumstances the Human Rights Center’s observer made several remarks to the chairman of the PEC Jemal Pataridze.

During the day, a voter entered the PS with an invitation card of the National Movement – “I Love Georgia”. Commission chairman Jemal Pataridze asked him to put the card in his pocket. The voter Grisha Khitiri told HRC: “National Movement brought it to me and said I had to arrive at the PS with it. So, I thought I had to take it with me.”

The commission secretary forgot to  input data by 17:00 into the demonstration protocol. The HRC observer was going to make a note in the record book but the commission corrected the mistake.

At midday, the following incident was observed in the PS. The commission chairman loudly announced: “There are no more voters and everybody can have lunch – you have been working from early morning.” The “host” invited observers to lunch too. Only three commission members and several observers remained in the almost empty PS.

I was interested in whether voters had gathered at the entrance to the PS. The PS was functioning in a classroom on the ground floor. So, I went towards the school entrance and saw a commission member from National Movement, Leila Varshanidze, talking with eight citizens standing on the stairs; one of them was an old person. I asked whether they had arrived to vote in the PS. After they nodded, I started counting them. One person told me she was not going to vote and had accompanied the old woman to assist. Commission member Varshanidze clarified that she had stopped voters for a while according to the PEC chairman’s order. During the conversation two more people joined them. In total, 9 voters had to wait for 15 minutes because commission members were having lunch.

I started writing a complaint about this, but both commission members and observers were surprised by it. They could not see any grounds to write a complaint and started insulting me. “They are people and they need to eat. Where is the violation here?! Shall we ask you for permission to have lunch?! Where did you see voters waiting for us? You are creating false provocation.”

Although many observers were in the PS, a complaint was registered only in the name of one observer. Others petitioned the commission against this complaint and claimed that the PS was closed for 5 minutes instead of 15 ; they also claimed that voters were not waiting in the PS in the meantime. Two members and the chairman of the PEC signed this petition.

The commission chairman handed us a copy of this petition only after having consulted Batumi DEC Chairman Davit Tordia about the issue.

I left the PS at about 5:10 am on October 2. Before that, the ballot papers of 828 voters were being counted. 4 of them had not signed the voters’ list. Officials notified the PEC members about the shortcoming during the polling process and they wrote relevant a explanatory note in the record book.

According to the final results, Bidzina Ivanishvili – Georgian Dream gained more than 70% of votes both in proportional and majoritarian polls.

In Adjara Autonomous Republic voters elected the Adjara Supreme Council alongside the parliament of Georgia. So, 4 ballot papers were handed to each voter in PS.