Georgians Vote Amid Fears of Voter Fraud by Ruling Pro-Russian Party

Meggie Diasamidze likens the fight for election integrity in Georgia to the mythical struggle depicted in the popular HBO series Game of Thrones. 

For Diasamidze, 22, the thousands of Georgians who have volunteered to police fraud at polling stations in the upcoming election are the “Night’s Watch,” a team of guardians sworn to protect the kingdom. Bidzina Ivanishvili, the billionaire oligarch who funds the ruling Georgian Dream party, is the “Night King” – a conniving, supernatural ruler who represents an existential threat. 

In the weeks leading up to election day, Diasamidze has hosted regular election observer training seminars in an office building in Tbilisi’s upscale Vake neighborhood. She and others advertize the meetings in a Facebook group called “Election Guard!” to reach young people keen to supervise voting in a hotly contested parliamentary race set for today, Oct. 26.

The election pits Georgian Dream against a coalition of pro-Western opposition parties, which have united over pledges to return Georgia to a European path. The ruling party’s increasingly anti-Western orientation and a crackdown on civil society have stymied the nation’s long-standing ambitions for ascension into the EU.

The most recent polls show Georgian Dream falling short of a parliamentary majority, but the party has already been accused of buying votes and intimidating voters as it has erred toward a more illiberal governing style.

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Watchdog groups claim the government has thwarted election observation missions by tasking US-sanctioned officials with overseeing the voting process. And in recent months, the government’s anti-corruption bureau has accused election monitors of partisanship, after a bill passed last spring targeting Western-backed NGOs forced many of the groups to register as “foreign agents.” 

Some of the same young people who joined fierce street demonstrations in May to protest the “foreign agent” bill are volunteering as observers to ensure the integrity of Saturday’s vote, according to George Melashvili, founder and president of the Tbilisi-based Europe-Georgia Institute.

“The very logical development for the protest movement is to become the movement of positive change,” Melashvili said. “Observing the election gives a unique chance for those youth to actually be a part of change.” 

Diasamidze, who hails from the southwestern province of Adjara, is a member of the Stubborn Resistance Movement – a group of young activists who organize online to ensure they have a pro-European protester outside the Georgian parliament every evening at 9 p.m. 

At the seminar, Diasamidze teaches future observers to watch for several tricks she said have been used to manipulate results in previous elections.

“If I’m here, I can stop this situation,” Diasamidze said.

For instance, observers have been taught to ensure voters match pictures listed on identification cards, said 22-year-old volunteer election observer Lizi Basilaia. The oversight helps to stop criminal groups who harvest identification cards from elderly residents, hoping to vote in their name, she added.

The ID fraud Basilaia described is a crucial ingredient in the so-called “carousel,” a trick made notorious by Russian President Vladimir Putin that involves rotating voters between polling stations to cast multiple ballots.

Observers also plan to ensure that voters’ hands are sprayed with silver nitrate, a transparent chemical that appears under a blacklight, showing whether someone has voted, Basilaia said.

Yet even a well-trained army of election observers cannot prevent fraud when Melashvili said it is most widespread – before election day. 

As Georgian Dream has faced allegations of voter intimidation, some young activists have taken to the streets to spread messages encouraging people to cast their ballots without fear.

At a Georgian Dream rally on Wednesday in Tbilisi’s Liberty Square, 26-year-old Levan Jagashvili handed out flyers telling voters that the government cannot see what party they write down at polling stations. The images are a response to recent stories of Georgian Dream threatening voters by saying they can see who votes against them, Jagashvili said. 

A technology sales consultant by day, Jagashvili has used his free time to spread a similar message on his TikTok channel, which has almost 22,000 likes. 

“We are trying to educate as many people as we can,” he said. “I want more people to come to elections than ever.”