Election Results Challenged, Applications Submitted to the Constitutional Court Subject to Rejection: CEC Chairman

The Central Electoral Commission disagrees with the legal arguments and claims presented by four political forces regarding electoral violations and believes that the requests for applications are subject to rejection. This was stated today by CEC Chairman Tigran Mukuchyan during the examination of the applications challenging the results of the extraordinary parliamentary elections at the Constitutional Court.

“Firstly, to annul the election results, it is essential to ascertain whether there were violations of the Electoral Code requirements in the organization and conduct of the election, as well as in the summarization of the voting results. Second, the recorded violations must cast doubt on the recorded voting results. Third, the nature of the violations must be such that it becomes impossible to accurately determine the real expression of voters’ will during the summarization of the election results or the discussion of complaints. For the election results to be annulled, the consequences of the violations must be irreversible; the opportunity to accurately clarify the expression of voters’ will must be lost. Therefore, annulling the election results constitutes a serious political and legal weapon, which should be used only in exceptional cases,” Mukuchyan emphasized.

According to the CEC chairman, when annulling the election results, the priority of citizens' right to participate in elections must be upheld. “Especially in the election results, the expression of the voters is substantively materialized. For this reason, in creating guarantees for the protection of election results, the presumption of validity of the recorded results is emphasized. If this principle is not practically maintained by the electoral commissions, mechanisms inevitably arise that allow for the fraudulent alteration of election results, contrary to the expression of voters’ will,” Mukuchyan concluded.