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ISFED started social media monitoring on August 29, 2018 as the official campaign began. At this stage, ISFED monitors only Facebook activity since Facebook is especially popular among different social media platforms in Georgia. This second interim report evaluates trends identified by social media monitoring at the end of the pre-election period ahead of the first round of the presidential election and during the runoff. ISFED continues the monitoring and based on the analysis of information collected, it will present a final report. 

Near the closing of polling stations, ISFED observed isolated serious incidents, such as: loss of table version of the voters’ list, unauthorized intrusion at precinct with an attempt of kidnapping a mobile ballot box. Other violations observed at this stage were mainly connected to the procedural shortcoming.  At this time, ISFED observers have filed 46 complaints with Precinct Electoral Commissions (PECs) and 54 complaints with District Electoral Commissions (DECs). 

At the moment of this statement, an important trend is the attempts to influence the will of the voters. Similar to the first round of the presidential elections, supporters of Georgian Dream and candidate Salome Zourabichvili, and so called “party coordinators” are mobilized outside of polling stations in various districts. They are tracking the voters who came to the polling stations. ISFED observer also identified a possible case of vote buying near a precinct.

ISFED is conducting a pilot Social Media Monitoring project for the 2018 Presidential Elections in Georgia. Given the increased role of social media in election campaigns and past experience of the use of Facebook for illegal campaigning as well as for discrediting electoral contestants in Georgia, ISFED has developed a methodological approach and with the help of software solutions from NDI has been able to carry out monitoring of the different layers of Facebook activity during the presidential elections in Georgia.

Based on the analysis of the information received through PVT, ISFED concludes that the voting process was mostly conducted without significant violations. However, throughout the voting process different kinds of procedural violations were reported, such as limiting the rights of observers; violation of inking procedure; procedural violations related to ballot papers; presence of unauthorized persons at the polling station; errors related to the voters list; voting instead of another person; campaigning at the polling station. Also separate cases of verbal and physical violations were identified.

ISFED observers identified an important trend of party activists’ attempt to influence voters’ will outside the stations, specifically in the way of writing down the information of which voters came to the station. There was one case where voters were being mobilized through mini-buses. At this moment, ISFED’s observers identified similar incidents at 40 polling stations. Mobilized activists are mostly representatives of the Georgian Dream, however in certain election districts representatives of the United National Movement are also mobilized outside of polling stations. 

Based on the ISFED PVT data, we can conclude that the tabulation of votes was mostly conducted in compliance with election procedures. Similarly to the voting process, number of violations were reported during counting of votes, such as: improper filling of summary protocols, restriction of the rights of observers, number of issued ballot papers not matching number of signatures in the voters list, violation of sealing procedure of election materials. In some precincts ballots that indicated voter’s choices have been improperly invalidated.  ISFED observers have filed 73 complaints with Precinct Electoral Commissions (PECs) and 82 complaints with District Electoral Commissions (DECs).