Haytoug Magazine, Armenian Youth Federation Western Region's official publication released an issue, which among other matters, focused on elections. It published Deputy Director of Transparency International Anticorruption Center Sona Ayvazyans interview and an America born election observer with TIAC Narine Esmailis contribution. "Usually government and authorities are using a large arsenal of voting violations," explained Sona Ayvazyan. She says that in the past, abuse of administrative resources, abuse of voter lists, carousel voting, ballot stuffing, falsification of ballot numbers, and many other factors have played a role in election fraud. TIAC and other NGOs have long been calling for authorities to release the names on these lists, to see who exactly is said to be voting in Armenia, but unsurprisingly, authorities have refused.

Thanks to watchdog media outlets, social media, a much more fed-up and vigilant voting public, and the hubris (or perhaps incompetence) of Sargsyans election-rigging-machine, examples of these types of voting violations were widely documented on February 18.

Among specific examples are misuse of voter lists. "Voters lists include people who have left the country years ago," explained Ayvazyan. "If there are about 500-600 thousand people missing from the country, their names are on these lists. We have a concern that these names are being used for supplying votes for different candidates."

See Haytoug Magazine for Sona Ayvazyans interview and Narine Esmailis contribution