Officials in Georgia said a partial recount confirmed the ruling party had won its disputed election, with Washington and Brussels demanding an investigation.

However, the pro-western opposition said Saturday’s parliamentary vote had been “stolen” by the ruling Georgian Dream party and it refused to recognise the results, plunging the Caucasus country into uncertainty.

The pro-European president, Salome Zourabichvili, who is at loggerheads with the governing party, has declared the election results “illegitimate”, alleging there was a “Russian special operation” to undermine the vote –which the Kremlin has denied.

The central election commission told AFP on Thursday that a recount at about 12% of polling stations, involving 14% of the vote, “didn’t lead to a significant change to previously announced official results”.

“Final tallies only slightly changed at some 9% of recounted polling stations,” a spokesperson said.

Tens of thousands of people thronged the streets on Monday to protest against the alleged fraud.

International observers, the EU and the US have criticised electoral irregularities and demanded a full investigation. Georgia is an EU candidate.

Georgia’s interior ministry said two people had been arrested after alleged ballot stuffing at a provincial polling station, while prosecutors said they had opened 47 criminal cases over alleged electoral violations.

On Wednesday, Georgian prosecutors said they had summoned Zourabichvili for questioning, because she “is believed to possess evidence regarding possible falsification”. The figurehead president refused to comply, saying plenty of evidence of electoral fraud was available and prosecutors should focus on their investigation and “stop political score-settling with the president”.

Opposition parties said they would not enter the new “illegitimate” parliament, and demanded fresh elections.

The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, a Georgian NGO, said in a report released on Thursday that the results “regardless of the outcome, could not be seen as truly reflecting the preferences of Georgian voters”. The group said it had documented “serious (electoral) violations”, including “intimidation, ballot stuffing, multiple voting, unprecedented levels of voter bribery and expulsion of observers from polling stations”.

A group of Georgia’s leading election monitors said earlier that they had uncovered evidence of a complex scheme of large-scale electoral fraud that had swayed results in favour of the ruling party.

Before the elections, Brussels cautioned that they would be a crucial test for Tbilisi’s fledgling democracy and would determine its chances of joining the bloc.

The European Commission said in a report published on Wednesday it could not recommend opening membership talks “unless Georgia reverts the current course of action which jeopardises its EU path”.

Critics of the increasingly conservative Georgian Dream party accuse it of derailing efforts to join the EU and of bringing the former Soviet country back into the Kremlin’s orbit.

The EU halted Tbilisi’s accession process after Georgian Dream passed a law this year on “foreign influence” that opponents said mirrored repressive Russian legislation, and which has prompted weeks of large-scale street protests.

The prime minister, Irakli Kobakhidze, insisted the elections were “entirely fair, free, competitive and clean” and that EU integration was his government’s “top priority”.

Near-final election results showed Georgian Dream won 53.9% of the vote, compared with 37.7% for an opposition coalition.

The presidential race is easily the biggest to watch this election. But, it’s certainly not the only important one in Georgia.

USA TODAY recently provided an analysis of each state’s less high-profile but very consequential races. Here are the three listed for Georgia:

Georgia House District 42

Who is running: Gabriel Sanchez, a 27-year-old Democratic Socialist, and Republican Diane Jackson are both vying for their first term in the Georgia legislature.

Where is District 42: Covers much of the Smyrna area, according to Ballotpedia.

What’s at stake: Sanchez is the first Democratic Socialist to win a state primary in Georgia, according to the Atlanta chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. In the May primary, he defeated incumbent Rep. Teri Anulewicz, who has served in the House since 2017. District 42 has not been represented by a Republican since 2012 and overwhelmingly voted for Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, meaning Sanchez will likely be the first Democratic Socialist state lawmaker in Georgia’s history.

Tim Walz in Georgia: At Savannah rally Tim Walz claims momentum in 2024 election with end of early voting Friday

Georgia House District 53

Who is running: Incumbent Rep. Deborah Silcox, a Republican, is vying for her second term representing District 53 against Democrat Susie Greenberg.

Where is District 53: Covers parts of the Roswell and Sandy Springs area, according to Ballotpedia.

What’s at stake: This race is one of the most competitive in the state, and one of the most expensive legislative battles. Silcox flipped the district Republican in the last election, winning by fewer than 1,500 votes. Greenberg has raised nearly $432,000, according to her most recent campaign filing, more than four times Silcox’s $103,000 from this year’s campaign. Silcox previously represented House District 52 but lost to Rep. Shea Roberts, a Democrat, in 2020. Silcox notably refused to concede for over six months following the election, after a lawsuit was filed by a Sandy Springs resident alleging that voter fraud had occurred in the district. The case was eventually dismissed by the Georgia Supreme Court.

Georgia Senate District 48

Who is running: Incumbent Sen. Shawn Still, a Republican, is defending his seat from Democratic challenger Ashwin Ramaswami.

Where is District 48: Approximate of north Johns Creek and east Alpharetta, according to Ballotpedia.

What’s at stake: Still was one of 19 people indicted in Georgia as part of former President Trump’s fake elector scheme, having served as a secretary who signed and filed false documents in an attempt to overturn the 2020 election results. His opponent, Ramaswami, has been campaigning on his experience in election cybersecurity and other progressive issues, and has raised more than five times as much as Still, according to recent campaign filings. If elected, Ramaswami would be the first Indian American and first Gen Z lawmaker in the Georgia Senate.

The political landscape has shifted greatly since the 2020 presidential election when a record number of Georgians voted absentee during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Four years ago after Election Day, then-President Donald Trump and his Republican allies sparked a wildfire of conspiracy theories regarding absentee ballot voting fraud as the reason he lost the election to Joe Biden in Georgia by less than 12,000 votes.

Mail-in voting will be an important aspect of this year’s Nov. 5 presidential election, which has so far seen a record early voting turnout of more than 3,2 million Georgia casting ballots in person at the polls, or 44% of all active voters.

The state’s early voting period ends Friday.

As of Monday, more than 199,000 Georgians have turned in mail-in ballots out of a total of 342,000 requested ballots. Voters who did not request an absentee ballot by Friday’s deadline must vote early in person or on the Nov. 5 Election Day.

Election officials in Georgia and several voting rights organizations are encouraging voters to directly return their mail-in ballots to county election offices and drop boxes, or to vote in person if they have not yet received them.

Georgia’s county election workers greeted a historic number of early-bird voters since select polling places opened on Oct. 15, with some locations experiencing wait times in excess of an hour daily. Statewide, reports of long lines were minimal. Voter turnout is expected to increase during this final week of early voting.

Georgia nonprofit Fair Fight Action, a voting access advocacy organization, noted significant problems with mail-in ballot processing this fall and advised voters to return their ballots via drop boxes or in-person voting instead of sending them by postal mail. An overhaul of the postal service’s Atlanta Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Palmetto is blamed for delaying mail delivery so much that a bipartisan group of Georgia’s congressional delegation has issued stinging criticism of the U.S. postmaster general.

According to Fair Fight Action, a number of county registrars are coping with delays in vote-by-mail processing, with one-third of voters contacted still waiting for their ballots.

A third of the about 190,000 ballots sent to Georgia voters that were unreturned as of last week were within the metro Atlanta area, including the counties of Cobb, Fulton. Gwinnett, and DeKalb. Unreturned ballots in other parts of the state were reported to be at their highest levels in Bibb, Dougherty, and Sumter counties, according to Fair Fight.

Absentee ballots must be received by the time the polls close at 7 p.m. Election Day in order to be counted.

“We do not recommend at this point, that voters, put their ballot in the postal system,” Fair Fight CEO Lauren Groh-Wargo said last week. “They need to return it into a drop box, or they need to go into an early voting center and cancel their mail vote and vote in person because of the postal delays.”

Since the 2020 election, Georgia lawmakers introduced new voter ID laws that specifically limit options for absentee voters.

About 1,200 absentee ballots are on the Georgia Secretary of State’s office list of ones rejected for deficiencies.

Many of the rejections were due to ID errors, which could be a result of Georgia voters being unaware of the new ID requirements that differ for each form of voting, according to VoteRiders, a national voter ID resource organization.

VoteRiders is collaborating with Fair Count of Georgia for a ballot cure program that will assist voters to have their absentee ballots counted by fixing the issues that resulted in their ballots being rejected.

“What we are seeing is in addition to the changes in the deadline for requesting an absentee ballot, there are new voter ID requirements for absentee ballots that did not exist in 2020,” said Randy Faigen, Georgia state coordinator for VoteRiders.

Voters who have had their absentee ballots rejected are being contacted directly by Fair Count. Election officials in some areas have already contacted voters to inform them of the problem.

“A lot of times it requires that they submit a copy of their state ID or their driver’s license, and that isn’t always easy, especially for some of our elderly voters who may not have access to a photocopy machine or have a smartphone to send that in,” Faigan said. “They may need a ride to go to the county elections office to show them their ID. If so, then we’re really just brainstorming with the voter to figure out what we can do to make sure their ballot counts.”

This year’s election has seen a substantial number of Republican operatives change their stance to emphasize early voting. Georgia is considered one of seven swing states for the Nov. 5 presidential election contest between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Throughout his 2024 campaign, Trump has publicly encouraged Republicans to vote early at polling stations, but there has been mixed messaging about absentee voting.

In 2020, Trump’s early lead over Biden evaporated after Election Day as mail-in votes were tabulated in Democratic strongholds such as Fulton County. Trump and other supporters spread false allegations that the election was stolen in order to cause doubt in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and other states where Trump was defeated after the 2020 election.

In the following 10 weeks, there were over 60 failed voter fraud lawsuits, multiple new conspiracy theories about election theft, violent threats against election officials, and a deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, David Becker, executive director of The Center for Election Innovation & Research, said on an October episode of his podcast “The Count with David Becker.”

“(Trump’s) message to his party was clear,” Becker said. “Any election we lose cannot be trusted. Election distrust was now hardwired into a major political party.

“So when that party lost in 2020, the partisan effect combined with the hardwired message, fully half of Republicans expressed no confidence in the vote, a 32-point gap below Democrats,” Becker said. “There’s a painful paradox in this lost confidence. As overall confidence in elections was dropping, the elections themselves were getting better and better.

“More professional, more transparent, more verified, more secure, until we reached the most trustworthy and least trusted election in American history,” Becker said

Faigan said absentee voting remains a secure way for Georgians to make their voices heard in an election.

“Absentee is a great method of voting,” Faigan said. “People get nervous about it. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, but the ballots are secure. if you take it to a drop box, you can put it in yourself, and you see it go in. The hard part is the mail and that’s the one factor we cannot control. Georgia is a received-by-absentee ballot date, which means absentee ballots have to be received by 7pm on Election Day. It doesn’t matter what the postmark says.”