TBILISI, DFWatch – Despite its shortcomings, International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED) and Council of Europe’s election program advisor, Igor Gaon, are positive to how the Commission for Voters’ List Accuracy is working.

The commission will present its data on September 15, while the interim monitoring results of the commissions working process were presented on August 16 by ISFED.

Chairman of the commission, Mamuka Katsitadze, noted that he is pleasantly surprised by the positive reaction.

“Of course there were shortcomings, but no one had the illusion that the result would be flawless. However, when in the end you get an unarguably positive evaluation, you are left with only one option, to be overwhelmed with a feeling of satisfaction,” Katsitadze noted.

ISFED monitored the work of the commission from the moment it was created. The organization had several areas of concern, but most attention was paid to the training and selection of registrars and the process of Door to Door voter checking. Monitoring took place in 73 Georgian municipalities and cities. The head of ISFED, Nino Lomjaria, noted that in some cases when registrars did not fill in special official forms necessary for change of the status of those voters who were deceased or living abroad.

“We sent information about all such incidents to the commission. They were fully informed where exactly, at what address they occurred,” said Lomjaria.

Igor Gaon was also positive to the work of the commission, noting that Georgian problems with the voters list are pretty similar to those of developed countries.

“Many developed countries suffer from problems with registration which is mainly due to migration.”

Despite these positive evaluations, Georgian Dream lawyer Zakaria Kutsnashvili said the coalition has conducted its own alternative door to door checking. This process was finished on August 5 and the results will be sent to the commission responsible for the checking of the voters list on August 17.

The electronic version, though not the final version, of the voters’ list has been sent to the Central Commission on August 1. According to this version published by the Central Commission the number of voters in Georgia is estimated to 3 621 256.