Public Defender Attacks CEC Chair

Levan Tarkhnishvili, the chairman of the Central Election Commission (CEC), is actively blocking access to footage recorded by CCTV cameras at polling stations during the January 5 presidential election, Sozar Subari, the Public Defender, said on April 15. The government later issued a statement denying the allegations.

“Levan Tarkhnishvili is demanding that we and the entire society turn a blind eye and not see what CCTV cameras recorded. His demagoguery and incomprehensible statements that evidence obtained and presented publicly by the Public Defender are lies is aimed at this very purpose,” Subari said in a written statement.

On April 4 the Public Defender said that his office had studied footage from CCTV cameras at some polling stations, which revealed that voter turnout at eight polling stations had been inflated by 5,475 in total. Multiple voting, including by precinct commission members, had also been observed, according to the Public Defender. Footage from only twelve polling stations was handed over to the Public Defender’s Office.

“Representatives of the Public Defender’s Office were not allowed to copy footage from other polling stations under his [CEC chair Tarkhnishvili’s] personal instructions,” Subari said. “Suspicion about ballot-rigging, which has emerged as a result of studying the footage from eleven polling stations [the CCTV camera failed to record at one of the twelve polling station], is only strengthened with this kind of action by the CEC.”

“It is unclear why watching the footage from other polling stations has been blocked if everything is OK there. What is the purpose of installing CCTV cameras if no one is able to watch the footage? When those people [in the CEC] do not want us to see what the CCTV cameras have recorded, they can not command confidence… It is undisputed that violations happened, because it can be seen clearly that the same person cast two ballots. It will take only five minutes to watch that and it can be aired by the television stations.”

On April 4 when Subari unveiled his findings Rustavi 2 and Mze TV stations did not cover the story in their primetime news bulletins. The Georgian Public Broadcaster gave the story two minutes in the middle of its primetime news program on April 4. On April 13 a new program, Shvidi Dge (Seven Days) produced by Imedi TV’s weekly program Times (Droeba) and aired by the GPB, covered the story extensively, showing some CCTV footage. One precinct commission member seen casting ballots several times was appointed by the opposition and another one was from the ruling party.

CCTV cameras were installed at 1,159 polling stations out of a total 3,511 during the January 5 presidential election.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday evening, April 15, the government’s Inter-Agency Task-Force for Free and Fair Elections (IATF), chaired by Justice Minister Nika Gvaramia, released a statement containing the Central Election Commission’s rebuttal of the Public Defender’s allegations made on April 4.

In the statement the CEC claims that in only three instances did the footage studied by the Public Defender reveal an electoral violation. “These cases have been referred to the General Prosecutor’s Office,” it said. “While the CEC admits that any electoral misconduct is unacceptable, it is worth noting that the violations observed on the tapes concern only a few ballots and would by no means affect the outcome of the election.”

It also claims that the Public Defender’s allegations about inflated voter turnout at the studied polling stations, was triggered by “two crucial errors.”

“It fails to understand the existence of special ‘attached’ precincts—most notably those at military bases—whose ballots were counted and tabulated by the nearest standard precinct.   In cases where the number of voters listed on the protocol sheet greatly exceeds the number of voters observed on the video footage, the explanation is straightforward: those precincts were responsible for tabulating the results of their ‘attached’ precincts, as well as their own ballots.  A large part of the voters indicated on such protocol sheets in fact voted at another location, and therefore do not appear on the video,” the rebuttal reads.

It also points out that votes cast in so called “mobile voting boxes” were also not taken into account by the Public Defender while studying the footage. By law, each precinct is required to use a mobile voting box for citizens who are unable to vote at the actual polling station due to illness, physical disability, or detention.