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Mass Fraud, Voting Irregularities in Armenian Parliamentary Elections, Observer Mission Says

In the course of Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Armenia, 3 122 independent and impartial observers of the local Citizen Observer monitoring mission recorded a total of 1918 voting irregularities at 1521 polling stations that are currently being looked into.

Below is Citizen Observer’s statement summing up its findings:

Violations throughout the day (07:00-20:00)

Total number of irregularities – 471

Violation of the rights of observers, media representatives, proxies or visitors – 47

Technical equipment failures – 184

Presence of unauthorized persons – 88

Pressure and violence – 16

Congestion (of people and cars) – 136

Preparation (07:00-08:00)

Total number of irregularities – 300

Irregularities in the conduct of the precinct commission – 49

Incorrect voting room logistics – 163

Availability of propaganda materials – 19

Problems with voting items – 8

Other – 61

Voting process (08:00-20:00)

Total number of irregularities – 1147

Irregularities in the conduct of the precinct commission – 54

Problems with confirmation/registration of a person’s identity – 121

Violations or attempts to violate the secrecy of voting – 243

Violations of the procedure for rendering assistance to a voter – 116

Instances of taking out or bringing in voting items – 77

Distribution or promise of election bribes – 5

Cases of propaganda or anti-propaganda – 26

Voter tampering – 178

Repeated voting or voting instead of another person – 77

Violations of the right to vote – 13

Other – 237

Summing up the currently available data, the Citizen Observer initiative identifies the following issues and therefore insists that the issue of public confidence in elections remains unresolved:

1. Controlled and open voting;

2. Voter bribery;

3. Accumulation of people, confusion;

4. Poor-quality election commission work;

5. Failure of technical innovations;

6. Partial inaction of police at polling stations;

7. Overcomplicated voting procedure.