New tool against electoral fraud (video)
Armenian National Congress-People’s Party of Armenia (Congress-HZhK) alliance offers the citizens to reveal electoral fraud together. Visiting elections.anc.am website and by registering there, the voters can find out whether someone else has voted instead of him or his friends. “If we find an absentee, instead of whom it was voted, member of that committee will be sentenced to 2-5 years’ imprisonment. By the way, the chance for fine is excluded in this case,” says HAK member Avetis Avagyan. The collected information will be presented to the electoral committee by the opposition power. New electoral code determines strict regulations for vote rigging. Even in case of revealing 500 cases of vote rigging, there is a basis that the results of the elections will be considered invalid. Levon Zurabyan explains: “Even 500 cases of vote rigging may influence distribution of mandates. As one party might have received one mandate less.” That’s the reason, according to Levon Zurabyan, that this time the authorities will not resort to electoral fraud. Falsification of voters’ signature or double-voting assumes serious consequences for the offenders. “If they do something like that, they will provide our society and the international community with undeniable facts about their crime.” Levon Zurabyan urges the citizens to take April 2 parliamentary elections more than seriously. Besides the abovementioned, the course of elections will be broadcast live, the signed voter lists will be published, which will rule out any forgery. “We call on the people to carry out that revolution, to vote being sure that their vote will decide the future of our country,” states Levon Zurabyan. Under these circumstances, everything is in the hands of citizens; either they will refuse electoral bribe, making their vote decisive, or the previous years’ example will be repeated.
