Photos: How People Spoiled Their Ballots; There Was Also a Case of Empty Envelopes Being Cast

During the municipal council elections in Meghri on October 18, at the polling station 35/1 located in the building of the Meghri branch of the National Aesthetic Center, it was noted that one ballot envelope was empty during the tallying of votes. Reports Aravot.am news outlet.

The envelope bore a self-adhesive stamp. It’s important to mention that these envelopes have a cut, and after leaving the voting booth, before dropping the ballot in the box, a commission member must affix the self-adhesive stamp to the ballot through the cut in the envelope. This indicates that the commission member was aware that there was no ballot in the envelope. When authorized persons requested clarification, the chairman of the 35/1 commission, Gagik Khalafyan appointed by the “Armenia” alliance, stated that one voter indicated a desire to invalidate their ballot. After that, they proposed not placing the ballot in the envelope in agreement with the commission members, which is why it was decided to affix the stamp to the envelope. The chairman also did not allow a record of the violation to be made in the logbook.

“In polling station 35/1 of Meghri, the voter received the ballot and the envelope, but kept the ballot with them and only handed over an empty envelope, on which a commission member affixed the stamp and allowed the voter to exit the polling station. Since communities with fewer than 70,000 voters receive only one ballot, this incident could signify an attempt at ‘carousel’ voting, where newly entering voters at the polling station might already have a previously voted ballot and later exit with a new empty ballot, thus continuing the corrupt chain,” reported the ‘Witness’ observation mission. We expect clarification from the Central Electoral Commission regarding this incident. We also present photos of various marked ballots. Notably, there were also ballots containing insults that are not subject to publication.