Polling Station, Ararat Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2005

RFE/RL reports on what many of us saw with our own eyes — deserted polling stations that contrasted alarmingly with reports of a high voter turnout from the Central Elections Commission and the state-controlled media. If the official figures are to be believed, voters in most of the precincts I visited with Harutiun Hambartsumian, head of It’s Your Choice, must have flooded to the polls in the last few hours that they were open.

Voters were eerily absent from polling stations across Yerevan and surrounding regions on Sunday afternoon despite official figures that put the Armenian authorities on track to pass the legal threshold for pushing through their constitutional amendments.

According to Central Election Commission (CEC), just over a million people, or 43.5 percent of Armenia’s 2.3 million eligible voters took part in the constitutional referendum as of 5 p.m. The CEC put the nationwide turnout at 26.1 percent at 2 p.m., claiming that as many as 400,000 Armenians flocked to the polls in the next three hours.

The Armenian opposition, which has called for a popular boycott of the vote, was conducting a separate voter count. Opposition representatives said that less than 250,000 people across the country took part in the referendum by 5 p.m., accusing the authorities of grossly inflating the turnout.

The CEC data clearly contrasted with largely empty electoral precincts in Yerevan and areas south and north of the capital. Officials at a polling station in the city’s southwestern Malatia-Sebastia district said less than 8 percent of the local voters visited it as of 5 p.m. RFE/RL correspondents who spent about 40 minutes there counted only four voters casting their ballots.

Polling Station, Ararat Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2005

Apart from two stations close to Artashat where it appeared that votes had been bought and voters were handing over ballot papers that were not folded correctly and thus could be checked before being placed in the ballot box, the dozen polling stations I saw were deserted. Members of the Precinct Election Commissions were either absent, in rooms out back, listening to music, or sitting complaining to each other about the cold in between the odd voter coming in to cast their ballot.

The rate of voting looked essentially the same in Echmiazdin, a town 20 kilometers south of Yerevan, and surrounding villages. The chairman of the electoral district No. 19 encompassing the area, Arsen Davtian, reported a 28 percent turnout at around 3 p.m. “Turnout is the same as in local elections,” he told RFE/RL.

[…]

But as she spoke there was nobody else in the polling station except commission members, police officers, village chief Edgar Hovannisian and a group of unknown men. Hovannisian too claimed that there was greater voter activity “a short while ago.” “The opposition calls [for a boycott] didn’t make a difference,” he added.

Polling Station, Armavir Region, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2005

Still, at least others were”involved” in the process. Outside one polling station in Etchmiadzin were two Hummers belonging to the local clan that controlled the town. One domestic observer from It’s Your Choice requested that we didn’t speak for more than 5 minutes with her. Any longer and the PEC would “make trouble” for her. Another IYC observer reported three cases of ballot box stuffing at polling stations in the town.

Even so, RFE/RL also reports that the authorities have announced the vote as valid, and according to Ara Manoogian over at Martuni or Bust, the state-controlled media is already perpetuating the lie.

Tonight on H2 television, they reported that at 18:00 there was going to be a meeting at the manuscript library, but no one showed up. They showed video pictures of an empty yard of the library. Reality is that the meeting was in front of the opear and not the manuscript library, as the pictures I’ve posted show. What are they trying to tell the people? No one cared and didn’t show up to the meeting, so don’t bother raising your voice? Once again government television misleads the people and so many ways.

Opposition Press Conference, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2005

Later in the evening at a press conference held by senior members of the opposition there were at least more people in attendance than we saw at ALL of the polling stations we visited during the day combined. The opposition are calling on people to gather in central Yerevan at 3pm today.

However, as the low turnout for the referendum was perhaps as much about voter apathy rather than support for the opposition’s call to boycott the poll, it is unlikely that people will.

Nevertheless, once again, hopes for democracy to emerge in Armenia have died, and it will be interesting to hear what the pitiful amount of Council of Europe observers report later on today. Some progress towards european integration…