The Procedural Issues Committee deliberated and approved the Draft Organic Law on Election Code and the companion Bills for the I reading.

According to the reporter, Chair of the Committee, David Matikashvili, under the new Code, the rules for the participation of voters residing in another state in elections are being amended, and, similar to the elections of municipal bodies, the elections of the Parliament will be held exclusively within the territory of Georgia.

As he said, this issue has become a subject of certain speculation - as if Georgian Dream is taking this step out of fear that non-resident voters might make decisions unfavorable to the ruling party. He stated that this allegation is not true: "The actual impact of this process on election results is minimal. During the previous parliamentary elections, more than 96,000 non-resident individuals registered at polling stations, but only slightly more than 35,000 participated in the elections - approximately only one-third, which represents around 1.5% of the total election outcome. This is not the kind of scale that could justify conspiracy theories".

As he elucidated, the decision made by the initiators is based on different arguments. Specifically, there must be an informed choice, and the only environment where the political context can be properly and accurately understood is one"s own homeland, where hearing and familiarizing oneself with alternative views on the existing situation is not difficult.

David Matikashvili explained that the decision is also grounded in: existing international practice; the reasoning adopted by the Constitutional Court of Georgia regarding Article 24 of the Constitution; and the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case concerning the Greek side.

According to the draft law:

• Certain definitions are clarified, including those related to the conduct of elections and referendums/plebiscites within the territory of Georgia;
• For the purpose of personal data protection, the rules for photo and video recording are refined;
• It is established that, where proper legal grounds exist, the order to leave a complaint without consideration shall be issued by the chairperson of the respective commission;
• The list of legal acts issued by the election administration is expanded to include orders of the district election commission chairperson;
• For the purpose of facilitating the full staffing of district and precinct election commissions during the election period and encouraging the search for potential personnel, rules regarding the incompatibility of positions and employment-related matters for officials of the election administration of Georgia are amended;
• The procedure for indicating the percentage share of votes received by an electoral subject in the summary protocol is clarified. Specifically, it is determined that the percentage of votes received shall be reflected in the final summary protocol without rounding, with no more than five digits to the right of the decimal point;
• A person with a criminal conviction may not become a member of an election commission, even if the sentence imposed is a fine;
• The main text of the Election Code defines the rules for participation in elections for voters who have been deregistered from their place of residence, whose registration has been declared invalid by a decision of the agency, or who are registered without an indicated address;
• The main text of the Election Code defines the procedure for the participation of wheelchair-using voters in elections;
• A person expelled from a polling place will be prohibited from entering any other polling place, and the election administration will maintain records of such individuals;
• To ensure the uninterrupted conduct of the voting process, the grounds for forming a special group within a precinct election commission are established;
• Additional grounds are defined for cases in which ballot papers placed in a mobile ballot box shall be transferred to the district election commission for decision-making;
• Candidate registration procedures are simplified. Accordingly, the grounds for candidate nomination, refusal of registration, and cancellation of registration are amended and unified.

The draft law is authored and initiated MPs: Archil Gorduladze, Tornike Cheishvili, Aleksandre Tabatadze, Davit Matikashvili, Rati Ionatamishvili, Aluda Gudushauri, Tengiz Sharmanashvili, Guram Macharashvili, and Akaki Aladashvili.

According to the draft law, amendments are also introduced to the Rules of Procedure. Since the numbering and placement of articles in the Code have changed, Paragraph 1 of Article 226 of the Rules of Procedure will now refer to the corresponding article and paragraph of the Election Code of Georgia.

This paragraph concerns the establishment of a District Delegate Bureau.