One of the most essential concerns recorded by “Independent Observer” Public Alliance during the Apil 2, 2017 Parliamentary Elections in Armenia was violations of secrecy of voting. To Assess this, in April 2017 “Independent Observer” Public Alliance requested the CEC to provide precinct-by- precinct data on assisted voting. The information was received recently. Quantitative Data Thus, 70 488 or 4.5% of those who voted did so with assistance. Moreover, this is just a fraction of the full picture as in 67% of the observed polling stations observers recorded cases when the person entering the voting booth with the voter did not register as an assistant. (You can several videos of such cases here). In 227 of the 2000 polling stations over 10 percent of voters voted with assistance. In 23 polling stations over 20% voted with assistance (i.e. more than every 5 th ). And in 4 polling stations over 30% voted with assistance. The absolute record belongs to 14/49 polling station in Armavir, where according to the CEC response, 89% of the voters voted with assistance. To make it clear that the majority of voters that voted with assistance did not actually require assistance, it should be noted that there were large magnifying glasses at the polling stations for voters with low vision. Hence, voters with some degrees of visual impairment could vote without assistance. 70 Thousand Voters voted with some interference It should be indicated that there was no similar correlation between the number of assisted voting and the votes received by the other three parties and alliances that were elected: “Tsarukyan” bloc, “Yelq” bloc, and Armenian Revolutionary Federation. Exactly the opposite, their percentage of votes in favor decreases with the increase of the number of assisted voting. The explanation to the phenomenon is that on April 2, 2017, Parliamentary election day, thousands of were controlled by the so-called “assistants” in favor of the Republican Party of Armenia. |