The Central Election Commission (CEC) issued an update on October 1 regarding the formation of polling station lists abroad and participation in elections.
According to the CEC, the unified voter list is compiled based on data provided by legally defined institutions, including the State Services Development Agency of the Ministry of Justice of Georgia and the Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia.
“The only requirement for establishing a polling station abroad is the consular registration of at least 50 voters (not solely Georgian citizens) on the unified list. If this requirement is not met, the polling station will not open:
according to current legislation, no matter how many Georgian citizens have foreign registration at an address in a particular country;
In diplomatic missions in countries where fewer than 50 voters are registered for consular services.
To participate in elections abroad, voters will be included in special lists, which will contain the same data about voters as in the unified voter list. In polling stations that have already been established abroad, voters are included in the special list if:
A voter in another country is registered for Georgian consular services and has a registration address in Georgia: Such a voter could verify their data in the voter list at any time before September 26, 2024, and can still do so now, as polling stations have been created on the territory of Georgia.
The voter has a foreign registration (their registration address is in another country, for example, France, USA, New York City, etc.): These voters are also included in the unified voter list, but since polling stations abroad opened 30 days before the voting day (September 26), it is after this deadline that they are distributed according to the countries where polling stations have opened, and after completing the relevant procedures, they can verify their data in the voter list.
A voter who registers for the election at the relevant polling station/diplomatic mission within the established deadline or registers for consular services by October 7 of the current year. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will provide the final data to the CEC on October 8, while the relevant state agencies (State Services Development Agency, Ministry of Internal Affairs, and others) will do so on October 9. After processing this data, the voter lists will take their final form. At this stage, information about voters to be included in the special list by country is posted on the CEC website. After processing the final lists, information will be posted according to polling stations created in other countries.
Voters abroad must have a valid Georgian ID card or passport as of October 7 to be included in the list. They will be able to exercise their right to vote if either document remains valid as of October 26.
Here, we again clarify the issue related to the statistics published on the electronic consular portal geoconsul.gov.ge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some individuals made a statement according to which 128,000 compatriots registered for the parliamentary elections, while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs transferred data of 65,508 voters to the Central Election Commission.
From the information publicly disseminated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it appears that the statistical indicator of the website geoconsul.gov.ge records the number of people who have used this website since 2015, including those who have registered for consular services.
Moreover, it is important to note that the right to register for consular services is not only for adult citizens of Georgia, but also for minor citizens of Georgia, stateless persons in Georgia, and holders of neutral travel documents, who do not fall into the category of persons with voting rights.
Consequently, the website’s statistical indicator (128,000 people) includes all these categories of people since 2015. This statistic includes those who at one time registered for consular services through this website and then unregistered, but as a user of the website, they still remain in the statistical data. Therefore, the indicator given on the website reflects the number of people who generally use the electronic system of consular registration and is not the statistics of people currently registered for consular services.
Regarding the October 26 elections, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shared information about 68,024 people registered for consular services to the Central Election Commission on September 25. After verification, it was found that 2,516 people on this list did not have valid documents and voting rights.
As a result, based on the data of 65,508 voters, the Central Election Commission created 60 polling stations in 42 countries,” the information states.
