Similar to all previous monitoring exercises, electronic monitoring of voting numbers at the April 2, 2017 parliamentary elections in Armenia was aimed at preventing possible fraud and violations and, by that, help to restore the trust of the society to the institute of elections. Its objectives were to control the accuracy of the process and results of voting in all precincts, analyze possible instances of irregularities and fraud during voting and assess the impact of fraud and irregularities on the outcome of the referendum. The project, supported by Open Society Foundations – Armenia, was implemented by Transparency International Anti-corruption Center (TIAC) NGO, which is the official chapter of Transparency International worldwide anti-corruption movement in Armenia ¹.

This method of electronic monitoring of voting numbers has been already applied by TIAC during the 2012 National Assembly, 2013 presidential, 2013 Yerevan Council elections and 2015 constitutional referendum. The method, which is based on the comparison of certain, related to each other voting numbers ², is described in detail in the “Voting rights and electoral falsifications” (ISBN-978-9939-53-733-7) book (in Armenian), published in 2010 in Yerevan. The basic assumption, on which the concept of the method is based, is that if the electoral procedures have been conducted properly, then the mathematical relationships between those numbers shall have certain (“correct”) values or range of values. If the voting procedures have been carried out in a proper manner, then the mathematical relationships between the voting numbers should be equal to certain values. If those values are different, then one could have serious and legitimate concerns that there could be serious risks on occurrence of irregularities and, even, fraud that took place in the electoral processes. The findings of the method could be very important additional proof for the findings revealed by the observation of the electoral processes before the Election Day, as well as on that day in the polling stations, including the vote counting and summarization of the results in the precincts.

Lyudvig Khachatryan, author of the method, is the head of the monitoring group ³ in this project. The same group also carried out electronic monitoring at all mentioned above elections and constitutional referendum. The results of those monitoring efforts are currently available at TIAC website (see http://elections.transparency.am/).

Voting Numbers Electronic Monitoring of 2017 Parliamentary Elections in Armenia

2017թ. խորհրդարանական ընտրությունների ընտրական թվերի էլեկտրոնային մոնիտորինգ

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1. The project team consisted of the Project Coordinator, Monitoring Group (see more about the group below) and Accountant.

2. All voting numbers are official numbers posted by the governmental bodies on their official websites. Those bodies are the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of the Republic of Armenia, Police of the Republic of Armenia and National Statistical Service of the Republic of Armenia. Among those numbers are permanent population, number of voters, turnout, number of ballot papers in the ballot box, number of self-adhesive stamps, number of stubs, number of votes casted in favor of party, candidate (or during the referendum – number of “Yes” and “No” votes), duration of voting, etc. All these numbers are calculated for each precinct, settlement, electoral district, marz, as well as for the country, as a whole.

3. Members of the monitoring group were
Lyudvig Khachatryan - Election expert/analyst, +1(718) 753 8470 [email protected]
Gayane Margaryan – MySQL DB Administrator/Web developer  SMS:  +1 (208) 509 9926
Armine Martirosyan – Software Programmer of electronic monitoring group.
Operators.