Citizens can vote with passports if ID cards expire, Georgia’s election administration

Georgian citizens will be able to vote in the upcoming October 26 general elections using their passports if their electronic identity cards (ID cards) have expired, the Central Election Commission said on Tuesday.

The comment came following the recent claims by domestic opposition groups that the Georgian Dream authorities, particularly in the country’s regions, were allegedly illegally confiscating ID cards from employees with pro-opposition sentiments to prevent their participation in the vote.

CEC Spokesperson Natia Ioseliani clarified that if voters present a passport at the polling station, their information will be manually entered into the verification system by election officials.

She also assured that measures were in place to prevent double voting. If a voter possesses both valid forms of identification, the system is designed to detect any attempt to use them twice. “The verification machine emits a sound that can be heard throughout the polling station, indicating that double verification has been attempted,” Ioseliani said.

Voters must be registered according to their place of residence to participate, and those presenting expired IDs or invalid documents will not be allowed to vote.

Georgia is set to hold its historic elections with the use of a fully proportional system, in which 90 percent of voters will vote electronically for the first time since Georgia’s gaining independence in 1990s.