With the publication of the voters’ list ahead of the 1 October parliamentary election the glaring difference in the size of constituencies, and the impact that it may have on the result of the elections has become only too obvious. Despite the fact that this issue has been highlighted many times by the international community, particularly the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the OSCE no remedial action has been taken.

According to the data that has been released by the Central Elections Commission of Georgia there are 3,621,256 voters. Whilst all voters have one vote the importance of this vote varies depending on the constituency. Whilst 77 MPs are elected on a proportional party list, the other 73 are elected through single member constituencies. The size of these constituencies varies enormously with some having only a few thousand voters and others exceeding 150,000 voters. More…