A journalistic investigation by opposition-leaning TV Pirveli uncovered an alleged vote-rigging methods involving alleged cases of vote-buying, voter pressure and voter intimidation through complex networks of “call centers” and dubious observer missions linked to the ruling party.
The bombshell investigative piece, prepared by the crew of Nodar Meladze’s Saturday, a TV Pirveli program, pointed to various schemes that the ruling Georgian Dream party allegedly used to rig the 2024 parliamentary elections. Below are the main findings of the piece, which first aired on TV on November 3, about a week after the crucial vote.
“Call Centers”
According to the investigation, Georgian Dream used a large and complex system of “call centers” to mobilize voters on election day. Citing “over a thousand” leaked files, audio recordings, photos, chats, and software data as evidence, the piece alleges a scheme of three thousand “call centers,” each assigned to every polling station across Georgia and located in specially rented secret offices near the respective precincts, including in school buildings or community kitchens for the socially vulnerable.
Each call center reportedly consisted of at least four members – two call center operators, a computer operator, and a leader – the so-called “captain” – who was responsible for receiving instructions from the party and updating higher-level coordinators. The mission of each call center was allegedly to mobilize voters to go to the polls and vote for the GD through “responsible persons” – those who directly contacted voters to get them to the polls.
The investigative piece showed photos allegedly from some of these call centers, as well as what the piece said were leaked lists of call centers, their addresses, and captains. It also aired audio recordings of various unidentified instructors allegedly ordering call centers to intensify their mobilizing efforts throughout election day. The TV Pirveli crew says it also gained access to the software used by the call centers, which allegedly contained the data of some 6,000 captains, was monitored by party headquarters, and required call center operators to enter the data of those who had already gone to the polls and voted for the GD.
According to the investigation, the party, possibly with the help of other state agencies, illegally obtained and processed the personal data of voters and may have even attached unique numbers to each registered voter. The party then allegedly provided captains with voter lists that also identified “responsible persons.” The investigative piece shows TV Pirveli crew arriving at some of the destinations where GD call centers were allegedly located. The video shows individuals, identified by the station as neighbors, confirming that they saw ruling party MPs hanging out there, or commenting that they were aware that party representatives were on the premises on election day.
The piece identifies lawyer Aleksandre Kobaidze as one of the “captains”. An audio recording of a phone call is played in the piece, and a man identified as Kobaidze confirms that he was involved in the mobilization scheme. Citing other audio recordings, the investigative authors say that those involved in the scheme were paid in cash.
Carousels
TV Pirveli’s investigation also looked into some of the documented cases of possible carousel voting. The channel crew tried to trace some of the people who were identified as being involved in the alleged scheme of trying to cast their vote multiple times or voting for someone else, either by using someone else’s ID card or by inserting different ID numbers in their travel passports as a note. (According to the alleged scheme, GD-loyal registrars allowed such individuals to vote in someone else’s name and facilitated the process).
The TV story shows the crew trying to track down Maia Naveriani, a Marneuli City Hall employee who was allegedly involved in a scheme as a district commission member and ruling party-loyal registrar. The video shows Naveriani’s colleagues telling the crew that Naveriani has a day off, while a man identified as Naveriani’s husband says she went shopping. The same man is then seen making death threats to the crew of TV Pirveli (Georgian Dream won 79.6 percent of the vote in the Marneuli municipality of the Kvemo Kartli region).
The investigation also tracked down a woman in Keshalo, a village in Marneuli municipality, whose ID was allegedly used by another woman to cast a ballot. Later, looking at the footage of the woman in question, the observer who suspected the mismatch claims to TV Pirveli that this is a different woman from the one who tried to vote with her ID.
In another episode, the TV crew finds a woman who is suspected of trying to vote three times, including twice at a polling station and once at home with a mobile ballot box, which is brought to those who cannot get to the polling station due to health reasons. The investigation finds that the woman is a public kindergarten employees, shows her video, argues that she looks fit enough, and questions how she landed on the mobile ballot box list.
Party-Affiliated Watchdogs
Another part of the investigative piece looks at the dubious election monitoring missions, who are allegedly affiliated with the ruling party and use their mandate to interfere in the vote.
These included the Observer of Politics and Law, headed by Eka Agladze, which deployed 2,645 observers, and the International Observatory for Barristers and Lawyers, headed by Grigol Gagnidze – Agladze’s husband – which deployed 2,491 observers. (By comparison, the largest independent local mission, My Vote, deployed 2,000 observers on election day, while the main Georgian election monitoring group, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), had mobilized some 1,500 observers). Other such dubious monitoring groups included the Khashuri Women Entrepreneur Union, led by Nana Sharashidze, which deployed 386 observers, and the Khoni IDP Initiative Group, led by Zaza Kalandia, which deployed 308 observers. TV Pirveli identified the latter as being one of the first to voluntarily register with Georgia’s Foreign Agents Register.
Using various election day footage recorded by local observers and media as evidence, TV Pirveli’s investigation suggests that representatives of such watchdogs were actively involved in voter pressure and carousel schemes. This included hanging out with neighborhood gangs inside and outside polling stations, sometimes following voters to the polling station and even into the voting booth with the suspected aim of influencing their voting behavior, or filtering out potential opposition voters and even preventing them from entering the polling station.
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Another suspected goal of such watchdogs was to create chaos and distract observers so that those involved in alleged carousel schemes could get away with casting a vote for someone else. Some of the individuals wearing the badges of such watchdogs were seen acting aggressively toward journalists, while others were observed outside precincts with lists that the station said looked like vote-buying operations.
In an interview with TV Pirveli, Gagnidze, who heads the International Observatory for Barristers and Lawyers, was unable to confirm that thousands of people registered with his organization as observers had actually undergone the required training, suggesting instead that the organization had recruited those with prior experience in election procedures. The investigative piece states that the station was able to obtain copies of observer passes from these missions, with civil servants also registered as observers. The piece then shows one such civil servant at first denying her involvement as an observer, but then half-confirming it when shown an observer pass with her name on it.
Another episode shows Nana Sharashidze, head of the mission of the Khashuri Women Entrepreneurs Union, chasing away the TV crew with a log. The crew said that among those registered as observers with Sharashidze’s watchdog was the governor of Tbilisi’s Krtsanisi district, Beka Mikautadze.
Vote Buying Confessions
A separate part of the investigation shows the TV crew traveling to various remote villages in Georgia’s Samtskhe-Javakheti region and pretending to be Georgian Dream representatives while secretly video-recording to identify possible vote-buying schemes. These included villages in Ninotsminda municipality (Aspara, Sameba villages), where Georgian Dream received a whopping 88.2% of the vote, and in Akhalkalaki municipality (Didi Samsari, Ikhtila, Trikna villages), where GD received 87.8% of the vote.
Some of these videos show families confessing that they were given between 100-200 GEL ($35-$70) either to vote for Georgian Dream or to hand over their passports. Another video shows a man, identified by TV Pirveli as a local shepherd, saying that locals who left the area and now live in Armenia were bussed there to vote on election day.
The piece also shows various people in these villages – including a woman identified as a member of the local commission – admitting that those who are registered there as voters but live elsewhere, such as women who moved after getting married, have simply sent in their passport or ID numbers for elections.
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