Lithuanian Eastern Europe Studies Centre (EESC) has been registered by a Decree No 231/2007 of Georgian Central Election Commission on 26 December, 2007 as an international observers' organization. 93 representatives of various Lithuanian youth organisations (the students of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University and representatives of Young Conservatives League, Lithuanian Liberal Youth, Lithuanian Union of Social Democratic Youth, Lithuanian North Atlantic Treaty Association and Lithuanian Youth Council) were assigned as international observers and posted to 9 towns of Georgia (Kutaisi, Zugdidi, Telavi, Batumi, Gori, Khashuri, Kareli, Rustavi and Tbilisi). More than 50 poling stations have been observed by the observers of EESC during the election day.
The key objective of the EESC at the Georgian Presidential elections was to observe the election, to undertake an analysis of the election process, to provide an impartial assessment of the election and support consolidation of the democracy in . This final report of the EESC represents the election - day observations and assessments of the EESC observers.
The overall observations made by EESC representatives allow to declare Georgian Presidential elections being well managed and conducted following the procedures of democratic elections. Polling took place in a peaceful environment and well arranged election framework. Despite fears of some opposition about possible violations of the democratic election procedures it could be stated that the election fully corresponded to the democratic standards.
Activity of the voters was rather high and consistent, observations of the polling stations with the EESC representatives indicated that before 12:00 a.m. in the majority of those polling station average percentage of those who already voted varied from 10 to 15 %. At the end of the election overall average turnout was 56.3 % (with the dispersion from 46 % to 74.48 % in different polling stations).
The observers of EESC have stated that in all polling stations were at least one independent observer, in some the number of independent observers reaching to ten and more. In their polling stations EESC observers worked together with the other observers from national (New Generation New Initiatives, Georgian Young Lawyers Association, Centre for Public Research, International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy (ISFED), Union of Professional Unions of Georgia, Democratic Principles and Human Rights Defence Union of Georgia, Union "Ratio Legi”, Free Professional Union of Pedagogues and Scientists of Georgia) and international (Embassy of the United States of America, Congress of the United States of America, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), International Center of Election Systems (ICES), European Council,  Embassy of Ukraine, International Republican Institute (IRI), European Union, Estonian Parliament) organizations of the observers. Although in general there were no serious violations of the electoral procedures, EESC observers have pointed several technical breaches of the electoral rules.
EESC observed some cases of campaigning during election - day, both outside and inside polling stations, which might have not always created the optimal environment for voters.  
Some of the polling stations have been up to a half an hour late to open for the voting.
Due to the sometimes not very even flow of the voters there have been observed several accidents of not a proper marking or checking of the marking. However as those defects were taken into consideration and solved immediately after the notice of the observers they are not be considered as serious breaches of the electoral procedures.
In a few polling stations it was observed that several old people were voting collectively.
In one of the polling station there was a suspicion of the double voting of several people. Some attempted cases were confirmed (e.g. New Rights member in Gori).
During the vote counting procedure in one of the polling stations the electricity went down for several minutes and it generated the discussion on the possibility of additional ballots inserted into the ballot box, however after the check none of the breaches were confirmed.
Despite those several rather technical violations of the electoral procedures, which could not have any significant impact on the overall results of the elections, EESC admits that Georgian Presidential elections were well managed, free, fair and conducted following the democratic standards.
Eastern Europe Studies Centre Tbilisi 06 January, 2008
Here you can watch an interview on election monitoring with EESC director Kristina Vaičiūnaitė.
Fragments of the EESC press conference in Tbilisi can be watched by clicking here.