Controversy over ‘Dumped Ballot Papers’

The opposition has claimed that the Central Election Commission (CEC) was “throwing away valid ballot papers” – an allegation the CEC says is absurd.
 
Speaking at a news conference on January 10,  Tina Khidasheli of the Republican Party and MP Kakha Kukava of the Conservative Party, both part of the nine-party opposition coalition backing Levan Gachechiladze, showed six sealed packs with CEC logos. They opened them and removed red envelopes with, what seemed to be, ballot papers.

Red envelopes were used by the CEC to hold ballots cast by voters who were registered on polling day. These ballot papers were then directly sent to the CEC. The CEC is still in the process of counting these votes, which total about 38,000 in number. Ballots cast by voters registered before polling day are counted in the precincts.

The opposition has claimed that the envelopes were thrown away to “cover-up” falsification of results. Kukava argues that there is “an imbalance between [what the CEC says is] the voter turnout and the actual number of ballots cast on election day.” The inference is that ballots cast for Gachechiladze were not counted, and so the CEC had to dump the envelopes to make the numbers match. The envelopes, the opposition says, were found by a group of non-governmental organizations, including Former Political Prisoners for Human Rights, outside the CEC on January 10. The NGO activists were protesting at the time, just as unknown men were throwing envelopes into a garbage truck.

CEC Chairman Levan Tarkhnishvili has dismissed the allegations, saying they are utter nonsense. Speaking on Rustavi 2 TV’s late-night political talk show, Primetime, he said that the CEC had thrown away empty envelopes which had no “legal value and are not official documents.” When asked if there were more than just “empty envelopes, but also ballot papers,” Tarkhnishvili said: “I can not answer on what I have not seen. If someone finds evidence of ballot-rigging this person has an obligation to immediately notify either the CEC or the police.”