Judge Nana Aptsiauri of the Tbilisi City Court did not grant the claim of the Strong Georgia coalition and upheld the Central Election Commission's decision of August 16, which stipulates that the drawing of lots for the distribution of functions among the members of the Precinct Election Commission will take place not on the day of the election, but a week prior.
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Giorgi Sioridze, a representative of the Lelo party and a member of the CEC, stated that the court's decision was not unexpected.
"Today's Georgian justice system, like other state institutions such as the CEC, serves the interests of the Georgian Dream. Legally, this was a straightforward case - the law is so clearly written that such a resolution should not have been adopted. In any other situation, the court would have made a different decision," Sioridze said.
In addition to disagreeing with the legal basis of the resolution, Sioridze believes that if the functions of the commission members are known a week in advance, the government will have the opportunity to exert pressure on them.
The Georgian Young Lawyers' Association (GYLA) submitted an amicus curiae brief on the case. The human rights organization explains that the Election Code allows the CEC to change the deadlines set by law only as an exception when a specific election event cannot be held within the prescribed time frame. Therefore, the CEC does not have the authority to change the deadlines by resolution when it was not impossible to conduct the lottery procedures on the day of voting. According to GYLA, although holding the lottery on election day has usually been problematic in past elections, it has not caused polling stations to open late.
In its amicus brief, GYLA emphasizes that conducting the lottery procedure on election day is not just a logistical matter - “it also ensures transparency, increases confidence in electoral processes, and mitigates the risk of potential intimidation and pressure on individual commission members”. GYLA believes that given the existing concerns regarding the politicization of state institutions, revealing the functions of commission members at least seven days in advance creates risks that, in the presence of relevant political interests, the selected individuals will be at high risk of intimidation and pressure.
"Despite the full composition of the commission being public, selecting members to perform specific functions in advance places them in a vulnerable position," the human rights organization notes.
According to GYLA, the change in deadlines for local and international observation missions significantly hinders the election observation process: "First, they will not be able to observe the voting process in as many precincts as they could on election day. Additionally, the CEC's ability to determine the date of the lottery procedure at any point during the one-month period further complicates election observation."
Parliamentary elections will be held on October 26. Based on the CEC's decision on August 16, the chairman of the precinct election commission must allocate the following functions among the commission members by October 19: voter flow regulator, voter registrar, mobile ballot box taker, and ballot box and special envelope supervisor.
Based on the Election Code, the drawing of lots to determine the functions of commission members is traditionally held on the day of voting. However, in accordance with the CEC resolution of February 6, 2023, at polling stations where voting will be conducted electronically, the members responsible for the portable ballot box must be identified no later than the 7th day before the election, while the drawing of lots for other functions will still take place on the day of voting. The CEC justified this change by explaining that implementing the lottery procedures at different times would cause inconsistency and could disrupt the organized conduct of the election process.
"In this case, it was important to ensure a uniform principle, both at technological polling stations and at those where voting will be conducted traditionally. The names, surnames, and data of the Precinct Election Commission members are already known. Therefore, moving the voting procedure to no later than the 7th day before the election will not fundamentally change the environment," said Giorgi Santuriani, head of the legal department of the CEC.
As announced at the CEC session on August 16, the parliamentary elections will be held in approximately 2200 polling stations using electronic devices, and in approximately 700 stations in the so-called traditional manner.
