By Stephen Anderson

If not for the extreme cold and primitive conditions, ISBA past president Herbert H. Franks of Marengo might have thought he was in the United States and not one of the former Soviet republics.

Selected as an international observer of elections last month in the republic of Georgia, which became independent when the Soviet Union broke up in 1991, Franks learned that seven candidates vied for the office of president.

The eventual winner, Mikheil Saakashvili, had been president from 2004 until last November. He stepped down after several anti-government demonstrations, and an interim leader scheduled the balloting for Jan. 5.

In visits to opposition candidate headquarters, where some spoke English, Franks found each confident of victory if the election were honest.

"How did they know that?" he asked. "They knew it because they had taken a poll. How the poll was conducted, they didn't know, but trust them, the poll was accurate." Sounds a bit like primary election campaigning in the United States.

As to honesty of the election process, Franks heard complaints that included dead voters, former residents who had emigrated, and voters who cast ballots in more than one location.

But opposition parties felt it useless to participate in efforts of the central election committee to purge the rolls of improper voters by running newspaper and television ads.

Franks arrived Dec. 31 in Tiblisi, Georgia's capital, via Ankara, Turkey, from Portugal, where he and his family had been vacationing in Lisbon.

"Upon arrival, I was taken at 5 a.m. to a small hotel where our group was gathering," he said. "I should mention that Tiblisi is 10 time zones earlier than Marengo."

During a sumptuous 11 p.m. New Year's Eve dinner, participants from several countries got acquainted. Franks was one of eight from the U.S.

"Each observer had a bottle of 150-proof Georgian vodka in front of them for the purpose of giving toasts and warming up on this very cold Georgian night," he said. "I might tell you that it works!"

At midnight, "we all walked out without our coats into the Georgian cold and snow, and watched a half hour of fireworks," he recalled. Then some, but not him, continued to party until 5 a.m.

On New Year's Day, they received their assignments.

For Franks and two others, it was Gori, high up in the Caucasus Mountains a few miles from Ossetia.

"We were warned that it was not healthy to enter that area," he said. Ossetia, which does not accept Georgian rule, has its own government over a population that has a different culture and language.

The central committee headquarters building in Gori looked attractive outside, but the inside "was a shambles," Franks noted. "One of the windows had obviously broken and was covered with a Federal Express sign."

The Saakashvili candidacy, listed as number 5 on the ballot, was prominent in the community. "The government building had one big sign in front of it, and to no one's surprise there was a Georgian flag and a big number 5 on it," he said. The post office was similarly decorated.

Thirty voting centers were spread over several miles, so Franks and his colleagues tried unsuccessfully to rent a taxi. "We later found out they were afraid that what we would report might be anti-government, and they didn't want any part of it."

Luckily, the Young Lawyers of Georgia had an office in Gori, so Franks went in an introduced himself with old business cards identifying him as an ISBA president. The young lawyers helped the group hire a driver, and they were at the first polling place by 7:30 a.m.

"Six of the parties had watchers there, too, so not much was going to get past anyone," Franks said. "As the voters came in and got their ballots, their left thumbs were painted an iridescent color.

"At other polling places, the first person you came to as you entered was someone with a lamp that highlighted the markings on voters' thumbs. I watched two or three turned away as they didn't pass the paint test."

Each polling place had two ceiling video cameras, apparently to guarantee honest elections, but Franks noticed something unseemly at one site.

"I looked at the cameras very carefully and discovered that one of them was shined right down into the voting booth," he said, "so the camera could see both the people and their voting."

He pointed it out to officials, who immediately changed the direction of that camera. They also put seals on clear plastic ballot boxes that had not been sealed. "Obviously an oversight," Franks said.

Each voter received three separate ballots. One was marked 1 through 7 for electing a president. Others were questions on whether Georgia should join NATO, and whether the date of parliamentary elections should be advanced.

After the polls closed at 8 p.m., the observers stayed at the polling place nearest the hotel for the counting.

"By 11 p.m., we had determined that Saakashvili won 52 percent of the vote from that one precinct," Franks said. "After that, we trudged back to our hotel in the snow."

The next day, they returned to Tiblisi to report their findings, which turned out to be similar to those of other observer teams. "Basically it was an honest election," he said.

Anxious to head for home, Franks learned unfortunately that airplane de-icing equipment had broken down, and no planes could leave the airport.

"After an extra two-day stay in Tiblisi, and a couple more meetings, we were able to fly out and go home," he said. "It was a wonderful learning and informative experience."