The Speaker of Information Protection Center of the Central Election Commission held a briefing about the annulled ballot papers.

“We would like to respond to the information disseminated in social networks and media about the number of annulled ballot papers. Electoral stakeholders make manipulative statements as if an excessive number of invalid ballot papers caused opposition parties to lose elections. The mentioned is a baseless statement and aims to raise questions within society towards the election.

We possess concrete facts when for instance, the opposition candidate won in elections with just a few votes though the number of annulled ballot papers exceeded the number of votes received by the opposition candidate to win the elections. For example, at the Martvili election district, a candidate nominated by the “United National Movement” won with 5 votes. The number of annulled ballot papers at one of the election precincts in Martvili election precincts is exactly 5. Similar to Martvili, at the N12 election precinct of Martvili election district, the candidate of UNM won with 5 votes and the number of invalid ballot papers amounts to 6. “Georgian Dream” and party “For Georgia” contested for the second round of elections at N24 election precinct of Tsalenjikha election district, one of the candidates won with 9 votes and the number of annulled ballots stands at 47. Thus, an unequivocal allegation of electoral stakeholders that the annulment of the ballot papers was aimed at seizing votes from the opposition candidates is false.

The election Administration processed the different types of statistics, including the invalid ballot papers. The given data and even examples cited above unequivocally confirm the accuracy of the announced results and that the conduct of polling and vote counting procedures were in line with the legislation“, - said Tornike Gogisvanidze.