Shalamberidze on Electoral Code Amendments

Zviad Shalamberidze, a deputy from the Georgian Dream party, responded to the planned changes to electoral legislation. According to him, "these are technical changes from start to finish, the sole aim of which is to simplify the process".

According to Shalamberidze, the electronic system has changed electoral practice and created an opportunity to optimize deadlines. He said that the electoral period, which began before the elections and lasted another 26 days after them, has been shortened by 11 days. According to him, practice has shown that all complaints submitted during this period were considered within the first 15 days, so extending the period to 26 days is no longer necessary.

According to the deputy, the reporting period has also been shortened, from 12 days to 5 days. It has also been determined how television airtime is distributed and who should transmit and cover television advertisements.

Parliament is beginning to consider the planned changes to the Electoral Code. One of the important changes concerns the rules for appealing elections. Parties and observer organizations participating in the elections may be subject to specific conditions for appealing the CEC's summary protocol, without which the court will not accept the lawsuit for consideration.

A new article is being added to the law. According to it, the CEC's summary protocol may be appealed only if the protocol does not reflect, or reflects incompletely or incorrectly, the data contained in the precinct commissions' summary protocols that must be entered into the CEC protocol. The same applies to the results of court decisions that have entered into legal force concerning violations of electoral legislation. A lawsuit filed in violation of these requirements will not be accepted for consideration. If a lawsuit is accepted, the court will consider only the circumstances specified and, if a violation is established, will order the correction of the relevant data in the CEC protocol.

Under the amendment, district election commissions will no longer be obliged to recount results at no more than five randomly selected precincts no later than the sixth day from election day. The corresponding article is being removed from the code.

The procedure for summarizing results is also changing. The final results of the parliamentary, Sakrebulo and mayoral elections will be summarized by the CEC instead of district commissions, and it will issue the summary protocol. The summarization deadline is being reduced from 26 days to 15 days: the results of the parliamentary, Tbilisi and all municipal elections will be summarized no later than the 15th day from election day.

The deadlines for electoral subjects and candidates to withdraw candidacies are also changing. The deadline for the start of powers of newly elected Sakrebulo members, Sakrebulo members and mayors will be the 9th day instead of the 14th day after publication of the summary protocol.

The deadline for submitting reports on the use of funds to the State Audit Office is also changing. A subject that receives the required number of votes under the law based on preliminary data will submit its report no later than the 5th day from election day. Under the current law, this deadline is the 12th day.

According to another innovation, some powers granted to the CEC and district commissions will become powers of the chairpersons of these bodies. The decision on the registration of observer organizations or refusal of registration will be issued by the commission chairperson. The decision on appointing observers to the printing of ballots and summary protocols will be issued by the CEC chairperson.