Georgian expats complain about obstacles to voting in upcoming parliamentary elections
Critics say Georgian Dream wants to keep diaspora turnout low.

Giving the stakes in Georgia’s upcoming parliamentary elections, interest among Georgians living abroad in voting is running high. But the Georgian Dream government is not making it easy for expats to politically participate.
In 2020, an estimated 850,000 Georgians were living outside of Georgia, according to UN figures, but only about 12,000 Georgians living abroad ended up voting in that year’s parliamentary elections. Over the past four years, the number of expat Georgians is estimated to have exceeded 1 million.
According to the latest Central Election Commission data in mid-October, over 95,000 expats are presently registered to cast ballots in the upcoming vote on October 26. That number represents a 30 percent increase over the registration figure in August. Many see the surge as linked to the incumbent Georgian Dream party’s recent moves to steer the country away from the West; expats want to have a say in determining the country’s geopolitical future.
A poll conducted by the Georgian Association in the United State in August showed that 96 percent of respondents identified election accessibility as a major issue in need of remedy. The association passed the results on to both the government and opposition parties in Georgia.
“None of the parties, including the ruling party and major opposition parties, responded to us... The lack of response was quite surprising,” said Vasil Tsiskarishvili, a co-founder of a civic participation initiative called GEO Vote USA.
Georgians living in the United States say they have encountered multiple obstacles to voting in the upcoming election. Just confirming that they are eligible to cast ballots is proving to be a tangled process. Listing in a consular registry doesn’t always guarantee inclusion on the official electoral list required for voting. Georgia has an advanced one-stop mechanism to register a new business in Tbilisi, but it lacks a centralized voter registration system. Would-be voters abroad must often navigate databases at multiple agencies, including the Central Election Commission, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Justice Ministry, to verify their eligibility, leaving many uncertain about their ability to participate.
“Voting is a constitutional right and should not be a privilege, should be accessible to everyone,” says Shorena Megrelishvili, a Georgian living in Washington, DC, and also a co-founder of the GEO Vote USA initiative.
Consular officials, Megrelishvili added, aren’t providing information to help expats troubleshoot registration issues. “There has been no will… when the government wants to convey a message, they manage very well,” she said.
Diaspora voting patterns could help explain why the government seems eager to keep expat turnout low. In the 2020 elections, almost two-thirds of expat voters cast ballots for pro-Western opposition parties. Georgian Dream received 29 percent of the diaspora vote.
Another major complaint among expats in the US is the limitations on casting a ballot. Voting by mail is not available. At present, there will be six polling sites in the US for Georgian citizens: one in Washington, DC, one in San Francisco, and four in New York. Many would-be voters thus will be forced to travel long distances at significant expense to participate.
Over 9,000 citizens are registered in the consular system in the US, while according to some estimates, approximately 40,000 Georgians live legally in the country. Those in the United States illegally are technically eligible to vote but are unlikely to do so given their immigration status.
“It is clear that they [officials] do not even want citizens who are here legally to vote, which is why many, including myself, feel it is not safe to go to the polls and give them our IDs and other information”, said a Georgian living in New York City without clear legal status, speaking on condition of anonymity.
GEO Vote USA gathered the required signatures to petition for the establishment of polling stations in a variety of other cities, including Atlanta and Houston. The government rejected those petitions.
The Georgian Young Lawyers Association (GYLA), a leading watchdog NGO in Georgia, issued a statement criticizing the state’s failure to address the voting access concerns of Georgian citizens living abroad. GYLA stressed that the CEC has the legal authority to request the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to open additional polling stations outside of embassies and consulates. Despite repeated appeals from citizens and other stakeholders, including the president, the CEC did not take steps to ensure that more polling stations were available.
“The CEC, as the state authority responsible for safeguarding citizens’ electoral rights, was obligated to ensure that Georgian citizens, including those residing outside the country’s borders, have the opportunity to participate in elections,” GYLA stated.
Megrelishvili asserted that Georgian diplomats in the US have retaliated against diaspora members who have publicly voiced criticism of the Georgian Dream government, recounting how she was removed from the embassy’s mailing list after posting critical comments on Facebook. Other Georgian expats have reported receiving the same treatment.
The Foreign Ministry has denied allegations that eligible citizens have been removed from consular registration lists for political reasons. “The Ministry, within the scope of its competence, takes care as much as possible that Georgian citizens living abroad can exercise their right to vote,” the Ministry said in a statement. “We would like to respond to baseless accusations that Georgian citizens living abroad are removed from consular registration on political grounds, which is not true.”
Beyond simply being able to vote in elections, diaspora members want the government to do more to facilitate the participation of expats in the country’s political and economic life.
“The diaspora’s role goes beyond sending money or voting, I want policies that harness the diaspora’s power to promote the country,” Megrelishvili said.
Irakli Machaidze is a Eurasianet editorial fellow in New York.
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