The Issue of Electoral Lists Remains Unresolved: "Civic Voice" Organization

Since the Velvet Revolution that took place in Armenia in April-May 2018, local self-government and parliamentary elections have been conducted fairly and transparently; however, several issues remain unresolved. This was stated in a press release by the "Civic Voice" NGO.

The difference between the elections that took place after the revolution and previous elections is also noticeable in the results of the electronic monitoring of electoral numbers conducted by Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center (TIACC). However, the monitoring also highlights unresolved issues in the sector.

TIACC has conducted electronic monitoring of electoral numbers during the parliamentary elections of 2012 and 2017, the presidential elections of 2013, the Yerevan City Council elections, and the constitutional referendum of 2015. This monitoring provided the opportunity to reveal, analyze, and potentially prevent electoral fraud and violations at various stages of elections, particularly concerning electoral lists and the suspicious duration and speed of voting on election day.

For example, electronic monitoring can detect addresses where dozens of voters are registered or see how frequently voters cast their ballots at different times of the day. Typically, voters who received incentives from previous authorities voted at specific times, and electronic monitoring helped capture such "coincidences".

According to the report published by TIACC, it is noted that compared to previous elections, the number of polling stations where voting was suspiciously rapid during any 3-hour period has significantly decreased in the post-revolutionary period. Specifically, while suspiciously rapid voting occurred at 680 polling stations during the parliamentary elections of 2017, it was recorded at only 107 polling stations during the extraordinary parliamentary elections of 2018.

In the 2018 elections, there was a complete lack of a positive correlation between the turnout figures and the votes cast for the winning political force, in this case, the "My Step" alliance. There was a significant reduction in the quantity of all types of inaccuracies and the number of polling stations with inaccuracies in the 2018 elections as compared to the 2017 elections. Specifically, the total count of inaccuracies specified by the Electoral Code during these elections was equal to 714, compared to 1,737 in the previous elections, and these inaccuracies were recorded in 277 polling stations (442 in previous elections).

At the same time, however, TIACC's report notes that issues related to electoral lists remain concerning in the post-revolutionary elections, with little improvement observed in this regard. Therefore, TIACC suggests developing effective mechanisms that would allow the state register of the population, which forms the basis for the voter register and electoral lists in Armenia, to reflect only those voters present in the territory of Armenia for the sake of having clearer and "cleaner" electoral lists.

For this purpose, it is also proposed that responsible authorities (currently, the Armenian police) separate the voters in the electoral lists into different categories for voters present in Armenia and those absent from the country during the election period, prior to the election day. The police should also clean the electoral lists of fictitious names and address-less residences and correct other inaccuracies present in the voters' list.

Furthermore, it is suggested to include provisions in the Electoral Code that would allow for an appropriate investigation of the identified inaccuracies. This will also be facilitated by a reconsideration of the monitoring methodologies by local observation missions, primarily emphasizing the preliminary analysis of the electoral lists, alongside counting the number of voters who participated in the voting, and pursuing the identification of the causes of various inaccuracies.

In addition, in order to reveal possible causes of inaccuracies, the counting of votes should be made more inclusive than it currently is, granting the right to participate in the process to authorized persons and observers.