The Training Centre has launched the training of Election Administration trainers for the April 29 Extraordinary and By-Elections. After the training course, the trainers will conduct intensive training programs on electoral legislation for the precinct election commissions’ members.

As it known, holding polling process using voter verification machine and special electronic machine for voting and counting, is planned for the By-Elections of the Parliament of Georgia and Sakrebulo, as well as Extraordinary Elections of Mayors of Municipalities - at 117 polling stations created in 10 electoral districts. Polling will be held without the use of electronic means at 47 polling stations created in 4 election districts for the By-Elections of Georgian Parliament and Extraordinary Elections of Mayors. Focusing on the mentioned issues and taking into account the procedural specifics of voting, the Training Centre has developed relevant training programs for precinct election commissions.

Natia Zaalishvili, Director of the CEC Training Center and Eka Tsabashvili Head of the Election Process Management Department of the CEC made opening remarks at the ToT. They talked about the importance of professional training for the precinct election commissions’ members for the effective implementation of the election process; attention was drawn to procedural innovations related to the use of electronic technologies and organizational/logistical issues of the voting process.

The Director of the Training Centre introduced the participants of the meeting in detail to the concepts developed for the trainings of the precinct election commissions’ members, according to which the trainings for the members of precinct election commissions will be conducted in profile, in three stages; it is also planned to hold an additional stage, in which the replaced members of the precinct election commission and those members who could not attend the previous training stage will participate.

Training of trainers started on March 20. 65 trainers will attend the four-day training course of the Training Centre.

Retrained trainers will conduct procedural trainings for members of precinct election commissions from April 11 to April 24. Detailed schedules will be published on the websites of the CEC and the Training Centre before the start of the trainings.