After the Constitutional Court’s decision, it will become clear whose arguments were correct: CEC Chairman

The Central Election Commission (CEC) presented its position both in its clarifications and in its closing statement. Everything has already been laid out, and the Constitutional Court’s decision will determine whose arguments are correct and whose are not. Vahagn Hovakimyan, CEC Chairman, said this in a conversation with journalists, responding to a question about why the commission did not, on its own initiative, order a repeat vote at the three problematic polling stations cited by the opposition, and whether this had effectively annulled citizens’ votes.

Responding to the observation that the results from precisely these three polling stations could have determined whether the Prosperous Armenia party received mandates, the CEC Chairman noted that the question was a reasonable one, and that comprehensive answers to it, as to the others, were given at the Constitutional Court. At the same time, he stressed that the votes cast at these polling stations did not affect the overall result, since under the Electoral Code their results are considered equal to zero.

“Under the Electoral Code, recorded violations mean that the only figure recorded at a polling station becomes the number of discrepancies, equal to the number of participants. Therefore, no one can claim how many votes any given political force received. This isn’t my personal assessment, it’s a direct requirement of the law,” Hovakimyan said.