INTERNET TO HELP RA CITIZENS TO CONTROL CALCULATION OF VOTES AT PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

2008-01-16 17:53:00

ArmInfo. RA citizens will be able to control the process of calculation
of votes during the presidential election in Armenia via Internet
in real-time, members of RA CEC from the Republican party Abram
Bakhchagulyan said at today’s discussions in the National press-club,
dedicated to the forthcoming presidential election in Armenia,
commenting on the reasons for failures in the work of the Central
Election Committee’s site.

He said that the presidential election will become the first electoral
process in Armenia, during which such a system will be applied. This
system was not used before as there was a danger of hacking. A
protection system has been acquired at present, which will rule out
any possible intervention.

Commenting on the statements of his oppositional colleague, member
of CEC Sona Sarkisyan about the existing clamant inaccuracies in
the voters’ lists, Bakhchagulyan did not agree and said that the
international specialists recognized the voters’ lists of Armenia the
best ones in the territory of CIS and even the Eastern Europe. The
voters’ register in the country is corrected not within a couple
of months before the election, like in other CIS countries, but
continuously, the CEC member said. As for availability of nonexistent
names, addresses, flat numbers and even names of nonexistent streets,
Bakhchagulyan said that the courts received no applications over
the whole past period on the fact of such inaccuracies available in
the lists.

Commenting on the opposition’s proposals to print the bulletins
abroad, the CEC member said that this initiative was declined for the
reason that the legislation envisages efficient measures to avoid
any violations. In particular, he said, all the bulletins will be
numbered and definite numbers will be provided for each electoral
district. All this will be published and any voter will be able
to verify compliance of this information during the voting. The
opposition’s proposal to mark the voters’ fingers with an ink is
unacceptable for A. Bakhchagulyan. "Armenia’s citizens are not
criminals and such mechanisms are unacceptable. Other efficient
measures exist to avoid the citizens’ repeated voting, namely, seals
in the voters’ passports, and we shall use this method", he resumed.