The Chairman of the CEC presented the preliminary results of the October 1 interim/extraordinary elections.

As Giorgi Kalandarishvili stated at the briefing held in the CEC, the election administration successfully completed another stage of modernization of the elections.

"The elections, which were held today in Gori, Kaspi and Gurjaan, confirmed the readiness of the election administration, as well as other involved parties, voters and society for electronic elections. We used the electronic election equipment once again on a large scale, for the eighth time in total, and it can already be safely said that the application of technology is successful.

Today confirms that the election administration organized the elections in accordance with international standards and the process actually went without flaws. The high level of voters' awareness is particularly noteworthy, which is undoubtedly the logical result of the large-scale and active informational and educational campaign implemented for this purpose.

The campaign focused on the issues of electronic voting. We used all opportunities to inform the voters: educational projects of the CEC and the training center, demonstration of electronic technologies at public events and meetings with representatives of various agencies, commercials and distribution of information brochures.

The information-advertising campaign, of course, will continue even more actively for the 2024 elections.

I must mention here that the local and international organizations that were actively involved in the process made a special contribution to the successful conduct of this process with us; The media, which provided coverage of election processes and informed voters both during the pre-election period and on the voting day.

Within the framework of new platforms of cooperation, we have repeatedly discussed election issues with them and taken into account a number of their opinions and recommendations.

In order to serve the voters at a high professional level, the members of the relevant election commissions underwent several stages of training in the direction of legislative innovations and the use of electronic technologies. Today, we all confirmed together that the elections are a common affair and there are all prerequisites and preparations for holding modernized and well-administered elections in 2024, in accordance with international standards.

The large-scale use of electronic technologies allowed us, today, one hour after the end of the voting, to introduce the preliminary results to the public based on the data of the 103 election precincts, where the voting took place using technology.

At the moment, the activities of the polling stations have not yet been completed, because in addition to the counting by the machines, the commissions will additionally count the results manually, which is an important mechanism of reliability, and after that, the summary protocols will be compiled. Currently, this process is taking place at the polling stations. Here, we remind you that the summary protocols will be sent directly from the polling stations to the CEC via tablets, which will further reduce the time of processing and further publication of the results. After precinct summary protocols are compiled, both in modernized and traditional election precincts, they will be delivered to CEC as soon as possible, after which they will be uploaded to the special website results.cec.gov.ge and will be available to any interested person.

As for voter turnout, a total of 43,330 voters took part in the elections. High turnout was recorded in Gurjaani, where 35.24% of voters came to the polling station.

It should be noted that 16 observers from 3 international organizations and 426 observers from 23 local organizations, as well as 178 representatives of election subjects, registered with the election administration for the purpose of observing the elections. In order to cover the election process, 158 representatives of media organizations passed the accreditation.

And now I will introduce you to the preliminary results printed from the vote counting machines of 103 precincts.

The preliminary results of the mid-term elections of the Parliament of Georgia are as follows:

No. 34 Mamuka Tuskadze (political movement of Georgian citizens "For Social Justice") - 1,344 votes

No. 41 Giorgi Sosiashvili (political union of citizens "Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia") - 19,032 votes

As for the extraordinary elections of the mayor of Gurjaani, the preliminary results are as follows:

No. 41 Giorgi Machavariani (political union of citizens "Georgian Dream - Democratic Georgia") 14,450 votes.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the election administrators at all levels, the training center, for their 24-hour efforts, these people continue to work even now in order to conduct election processes at a high professional level, in a free and transparent environment.

I would like to express special thanks to our partner, the international company "Smartmatic", with the technological support of which today's elections were held. I also once again thank each voter and the involved parties," said the Chairman of the CEC.

source: IPN