Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) monitored the October 2, 2021 Municipal Elections with the help of 300 observers. On and after election day, the organization filed 42 complaints with election commissions and 7 lawsuits in city / district courts, and in 4 cases appealed the decisions of the first instance courts to the Courts of Appeals. The district election commissions and courts upheld our 4 complaints and 1 lawsuit seeking disciplinary actions against some representatives of the election administration. As for the recount of the ballots requested due to the imbalance in the summary protocols, none of our complaints concerning 12 polling stations were upheld. However, by their own initiative or random selection, the district election commissions recounted 7 polling stations of the mentioned 12. Overall, district election commissions and courts of various instances have not upheld any significant complaints of TI Georgia.
Marneuli District Election Commission, the district court and the court of appeals did not uphold TI Georgia's request to annul the results of the two polling stations in Marneuli, where we observed serious violations, including multiple voting by some persons. Giorgi Gratiashvili considered the case in Bolnisi District Court, while Irina Zarkua, Tea Dzimistarashvili and Nana Tchitchileishvili were judges in the Tbilisi Court of Appeals. For the District Election Commission and the courts of both instances, the video evidence of the violation was not sufficient to upheld the complaint / appeal.
Moreover, Zugdidi District Court and later the Court of Appeals did not sustain Tl Georgia's lawsuit against the Zugdidi District Election Commission for recounting only invalid ballots in 4 precincts of the 11th majoritarian constituency, which resulted in a change of the winning candidate. TI Georgia asked for a complete recount of not only invalid ballots but also the results of 5 precincts in this majoritarian constituency. Gvantsa Vardanidze considered the case in Zugdidi District Court, while judges Shota Siradze, Nana Kalandadze and Leri Tedoradze did not uphold our claim in Kutaisi Court of Appeals.
In addition to these two important cases, the organization filed 12 complaints regarding the imbalance in summary protocols. In particular, after the elections, TI Georgia checked the summary protocols of the proportional elections of the municipality assemblies and the imbalances in them, at the precincts it observed. Out of 12 precincts where we requested recounting of ballots due to imbalances, 3 precinct were randomly recounted by district election commissions; in 2 precincts the district commissions recounted the ballots on their own initiative, while in 2 more precincts, although our recounting request was not satisfied, the district election commissions later recounted them based on the recommendation [1] of the CEC chairperson; the ballots were not recounted in the remaining 5 polling stations. As a result of the recounting of the above-mentioned precincts, the total number of votes received by the election subjects changed as follows: