Who Are the Vote Diluters? How Many Mandates Will Each Party Receive? - Arpine Hovhannisyan

Recent discussions have frequently revolved around the topic of vote dilution during elections. Former Minister of Justice Arpine Hovhannisyan raises the question, “Is there such a thing or not?” and seeks to explain what vote dilution means and who the vote diluters are.

She reminds us that according to Armenian legislation, the National Assembly of Armenia must have a minimum of 101 MPs.

“What does dilution mean and how are mandates distributed? Let’s suppose 100 people participate in the elections, of which 40 cast their votes for the first party, 20 for the second, and 10 for the third. These three parties surpass the electoral threshold. What happens to the 30 votes? They are given to smaller parties in various proportions and do not surpass the threshold. If the thesis of vote dilution were false, those 30 votes that are not given to anyone and are not allocated should remain somewhere, as the CEC states, and should not participate in the distribution of either votes or mandates. However, in the process of distributing mandates, these 30 votes do not disappear anywhere. According to the formula for distributing mandates, these 30 votes are allocated among the parties that have surpassed the threshold. They are distributed disproportionately, not equally. According to the formula, the party receiving 40 votes gets a huge percentage, about 18 votes, the second party gets 9 votes, and the third party gets 4 votes. This is the reality; this is how vote dilution occurs: the parties that do not participate in the calculations effectively dilute their votes among the parties that have entered the parliament, giving the most to the first party,” explains Hovhannisyan in detail.