TBILISI, September 23 – Georgia has started printing ballots for its upcoming local elections, scheduled for October 4.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) announced that a total of 3,897,500 ballots are being printed at four printing houses in Tbilisi.
Observers from election monitoring organizations are also present to oversee the printing of voting papers. Inspecting the process at Favoriti Style, one of the facilities handling the immense printing job, CEC Chairman Giorgi Kalandarishvili said transparency and quality control are essential to maintaining public trust in the election, which is being boycotted by a range of parties, including United National Movement – the largest one among the opposition.
Printing began on September 21 and includes several types of ballot papers: 2,813,150 of them are being prepared for use in modern computer assisted polling stations, while 1,084,350 are designated for traditional voting precincts. To ensure accessibility in Georgia’s ethnically diverse regions, there will also be produced dual-language ballots; 103,200 also in Armenian and 295,100 in Azerbaijani, as well as Georgian.
After the substantial printing job is completed in a few days, the documents will be distributed first to district election commissions and then to local precincts, in accordance with legal deadlines.
