Central Election Commission (CEC) has decided to allow more than ten thousand voters, who are not currently registered at any addresses, to cast ballot in the May 30 local elections; but to retain this right, they will have to apply to district election commissions and undergo registration before May 14.

CEC now has list of 12,539 such voters with absolute majority of them in Tbilisi.

These are those citizens, who have been deregistered from addresses upon the request of flat owners, who found out that person or persons unknown for them were registered in their flats.

How this category of voters originated remains a source of controversy with the opposition suspecting, at least in some cases, a foul play.

It was back in 2008, when ahead of the May parliamentary elections some opposition parties alleged that fake identification cards were issued by the authorities to their activists enabling them to cast multiple vote. The opposition Republican Party also claimed at the time that there had been cases when dozens of voters were registered in one and the same flat in Tbilisi. Some of these cases, when unusually high number of residents was registered at a single flat, were substantiated by OSCE/ODHIR election observation mission, according to its report about the May 21 parliamentary elections.

Late last year, there were widespread reports by the press and the opposition claiming that the ruling party was registering its activists from the provincial regions to various addresses in the capital city to allow them cast ballot in Tbilisi during the local elections. To allay concerns over artificial increase of number of supporters in Tbilisi, the ruling party agreed to pass an amendment in the election code in December banning those citizens to cast ballot in Tbilisi, who are moving from provinces and undergoing registration in the capital city in a period between January 15 and June 1. They are still eligible to cast ballot in their previous places of residence in regions.

According to the Civil Registry the main reason why the problem emerged is that people in most of the cases are not notifying the registry when they change address after moving to new place of residence and these people are formally still registered to the flats where they previously lived.

But that does not seem to be the case in all instances. In one case, followed by Civil.ge, a flat owner in Tbilisi’s Didi Digomi district, where she has been living for last 22 years, found out after reviewing the voters’ list that an unknown person Z.M. (first letters of his first and last name) was registered in her flat together with two of her family members – it was the first time when she found unknown person being registered in her address in the voters’ list. The owner requested the Civil Registry to deregister the person and also inquired information how the unknown person happened to be in the list registered in her address. She was told it could have been a mistake, which was corrected and that Z.M. was in fact registered in another address in Gldani district of Tbilisi. On that address in Gldani district, an owner of a house, where according to Civil Registry data Z.M. is now registered, told Civil.ge that he had never knew such person and he had never lived on that address.

According to the CEC’s decision, voters deregistered from various addresses upon flat owner’s request should undergo preliminary registration in the district election commissions to retain the right of vote. In case of preliminary registration they will be able to cast ballot at a polling station in a constituency where they were registered most recently; it means that such voter will be able to cast ballot based on the address from where he or she was deregistered.

Opponents of such decision, including opposition Republican Party, say that such decision was not in line with the election code.

Third part of article 9 of the election code reads: "Voters’ data is included in the uniform list of voters according to the place of their registration."

CEC Chairman Zurab Kharatishvili says that the commission took this decision based on the principle that not a single voter should be deprived of the right to cast ballot.

In case of preliminary registration at district election commissions, these so called deregistered voters will have the right to cast ballot in party-list, proportional elections for city council and, in case of Tbilisi, to mayoral candidates. They, however, will have no right to cast ballot for candidates running for city council membership in single-mandate, majoritarian constituencies.