EurasiaNet, NY
May 11 2007

What’s in a Name? Plenty of Voter List Controversy

By Gayane Abrahamyan
Published May 10, 2007

Voter lists have long been the bugbear of Armenian elections. Two
days ahead of the country’s May 12 parliamentary vote, debates
between the opposition and election officials over whether or not the
voter registry has finally been put to rights continue apace.

Central Elections Commission Chairman Garegin Azarian has pledged
that the CEC will do everything possible to correct the outdated and
incorrect voter lists that plagued previous Armenian elections.

`I will resign if there is not a 100 hundred percent [clear] list,’
Azarian said on April 19, news outlets reported. `It’s impossible to
have [lists] absolutely cleared of the names of dead people. And our
lists have never been as accessible as they are now.’

Corrections made to voter lists as of May 10 put the number of voters
at 2, 285, 830 — a decrease of 42,917 voters within over a month,
according to the police passport and visa department, which is in
charge of rectifying voter lists. Deceased voters accounted for just
over a quarter of the names removed from the list. The official
deadline to register to vote in the May 12 elections ended on April
27.

Voters have been urged to check their names on a list of registered
voters posted on the CEC’s website and to call a hotline to report
omissions. The latest interim report by the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe/Office for Democratic Institutions and
Human Rights’ election observation mission, however, stated that
`[r]eportedly only a low number of people used the two dedicated
telephone hotlines to report voter list inaccuracies, or checked
their voter list entries at PEC [precinct election commission]
premises.’

Colonel Alvina Zakarian, head of the police department in charge of
voter lists, told EurasiaNet that everything has been done to have
lists `as clear as possible.’ The May 12 election will be noted for
its improved voter lists, she claimed.
Some opposition parties, however, contend that ample room for
improvement still remains.

Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) Party Chairman Artur Baghdasarian
estimates that 25 to 30 percent of the voter lists remain inaccurate,
based on surveys his party members have done. `[T]here are addresses
and buildings in the lists that are totally non-existent,’ he said.

In Yerevan’s Kentron district, for instance, residents of one street
noticed that notifications for the elections had arrived for voters
living at even-numbered addresses on the street, even though the
street does not contain such numbers. Representatives of other
opposition parties have made similar claims.

Baghdasarian told EurasiaNet that he has submitted a written note
about the incorrect addresses and names of non-existent voters to the
police, but has not yet received a response. The opposition leader
expressed doubt that corrections promised by the police department
will be made to the final lists.

`Frequently, the final lists posted two days before the election do
not include the declared changes and people simply do not manage to
pass on information [about mistakes] and to make changes,’ he said.

One parliamentarian from a party represented in Armenia’s ruling
coalition echoed those worries. The Armenian Revolutionary Federation
has detected 900 duplicate names alone in the Yerevan district of
Arabkir, stated Hrayr Karapetian, one of the party’s leaders.

`The passport department specified that all of them are real people,
who simply have the same names,’ Karapetian told EurasiaNet. Such
flaws, he added, `can affect the outcome of the election.’

The police department’s Colonel Zakarian stressed that necessary
changes have already been made to the final list of voters.

One activist for an opposition party that has withdrawn from the race
claims that the incorrect addresses and resident names are used by
individuals who then use the names of the phantom voters to register
votes for certain parties. `I have taken part in elections many times
and I have seen how they show passports and get ballots, but, in
fact, those are not passports, but their covers alone,’ said Armen
Arakelian, office manager for a former Armenian National Movement
candidate for parliament.

Controversy still surrounds reports of alleged collection of passport
data by representatives of the pro-government Prosperous Armenia
Party and the ruling Republican Party of Armenia – data that local
election observers and opposition members claim could be used for
voter fraud. Both parties have denied involvement in any such scheme.
[For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive.]

A 60-year-old resident of Gyulbenkian Street in the Yerevan
neighborhood of Arabakir, however, shared a similar story with
EurasiaNet. `I go to the apartments one by one and ask about the
number of registered people, their availability on election day,’
said the man, who asked not to be named. The man showed EurasiaNet a
list he had made for one apartment building that indicated that over
half of the building’s residents had left Armenia.

`They [the party] mainly need to know the names of those who will not
be in Armenia on election day.’ The man claimed that he receives
about $100 from Prosperous Armenia for the information, but does not
know for what purpose it is needed. `I am not alone,’ he said.
`People in neighboring buildings also get money to make such lists.’

Opposition Orinats Yerkir Deputy Chairman Heghine Bisharian alleges
that such lists will be used by so-called `mobile voter groups’ who,
she claimed, `will travel from constituency to constituency and will
vote for the absent people. To escape being caught voting for other
people, they collect exact data about who will not be here [on
election day].’
Prosperous Armenia spokesperson Baghdasar Mherian, however, denied
the claim. The party, which claims to be the country’s largest, has
no need for such information, he said.

`We have 400,000 members and each of them has family members,’
Mherian said. `If we just double the number, the result will be
enough. But we will have more.’

Reports by the OSCE/ODIHR, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe and domestic observation group It’s Your Choice all made
mention of the use of such groups of voters during the 2003
parliamentary elections.

Editor’s Note: Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for the independent
online ArmeniaNow weekly in Yerevan.