April 2, 2017 | 22:30

#Armvote17
#CitizenObserver

Observers of the Citizen Observer Initiative have registered a total of1918 cases of violations between 07:00 to 20:00. These cases are currently being verified.

In particular, the following violations have been registered:

General violations during the day (07:00-20:00)

Total number of violations :471

47 cases of violations of rights of observers, media, proxies and visitors

184 cases ofviolations of technical malfunction

88 cases of presence of unauthorised persons

16 cases of intimidationand violence

136 cases of congregation of people and cars

Preparation (07:00 – 08:00)

Total number of violations :300

49 cases of violation of precinct commission working procedures

163 cases of violation of voting room arrangement protocols

19 cases of presence of campaign materials

8 cases of issues with technical equipment

61 other violations

During the voting process (08:00-20:00)

Total number of violations : 1147

54 cases ofviolation of precinct commission working procedures

121 cases of issues with ID authentication/registration

243 cases of violations of the secrecy of the vote

116 cases of unauthorised persons assisting voters to vote

77 cases of unauthorised movement of ballot papers in/out of precincts

5 cases of promise of bribery

26 cases of campaigning and/or anti-campaigning

178 cases of unauthorised accompaniment of voters

77 cases of multiple voting or attempt and/or voting with other person’s ID

13 cases of violation of right to vote

237 other violations

Total of 648 cases of violations were registered during the preparation, the voting process and general violations.

The 3112 independent and impartial observers of Citizen Observer Initiative have carried out the mission of observation since early morning at 1521 precincts.

According to the received data so far, Citizen Observer Initiativereports the following:

1) supervised, controlled and open voting

2) bribery

3) congregation of people and confusion

4) low quality of precinct commission procedures

5) malfunction of new technical equipment devices

6) passivity of police at precincts

7) complicated voting process

As a result, trust has not been gained among the public towards the electoral process.

The Initiative’s violations map includes entries from the Citizen Observer Initiative, Independent Observer Public Coalition, and the Armenia Helsinki Committee observation missions.

The Initiative will provide its evaluation of the electoral process during a Press Conference to be held on April 3 at 12:00, which will take place at Marriott Armenia Hotel, Ararat Hall.

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Observers Mission is funded by the European Union and co-financed by the National Endowment of Democracy within the 2017 Parliamentary Elections National Observation programme.

The information and views set out in this press release are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Union. Neither the European Union institutions and bodies nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.