The Council of Europe, in cooperation with the Central Election Commission and the Electoral Systems Development, Reforms and Training Center, delivered a training for representatives of domestic observer organisations ‘Election Observation and Report Writing’, taking place in Borjomi on 12-13 December. The overall objective of the training was to improve the quality of election observation and support enhancing public confidence in the credibility of the observation process.

The Head of the Council of Europe’s Elections and Participatory Democracy Division, Markus Adelsbach, the Chairperson of the Central Election Commission of Georgia, Giorgi Kalandarishvili and Natia Zaalishvili, Director at the Electoral Systems Development, Reforms and Training Center underlined in their opening remarks the importance of domestic civil society organisations in preventing, detecting, and responding to electoral violations. The necessity to protect the role of domestic observer organisations and to prevent abusing the framework for election observation was also emphasized.

Domestic observers, among other topics discussed: Guiding principles of democratic elections and observation; quality control and report writing techniques; the use of new technologies, artificial intelligence and the build-up of new frontiers in the election observation methodology. Participants also exchanged on the need to rebuild public confidence in the electoral process and steps forward to counter the misuse of citizen observer organisations.

The training was organised within the framework of the Council of Europe Project ‘Supporting Transparency, Inclusiveness and Integrity of Electoral Practice and Process in Georgia’.