Polling Station, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008

It’s now nearly two in the morning and it’s been a tiring day. However, while report after report of violations and falsification comes in, in the seven polling stations I visited today in the Kentron and Arabkir districts of the city, voting was pretty much calm. That’s not to say that violations didn’t occur elsewhere, or even that all was perfect in these particular polling stations, but rather that the environment for voting was peaceful.

Probably the worst violation I saw, although I’m not sure it goes against the electoral code or not, was a number of mothers allowing their children to vote for them. Otherwise, the main problems were pretty much what I’ve described already. Namely that means most PEC members, proxies and observers not wearing identification badges, the inability of voters to queue properly, the PEC’s apparent lack of concern with keeping some order in their polling stations, and the absence of a parallel voter count in all but two cases.

That is not to diminish the necessity of investigating allegations of serious voting irregularities elsewhere, of course, but more to simply assess the situation in the seven polling stations I visited. Personally speaking, the lack of clearly identified authorized persons in polling stations was the most serious issue I encountered. Otherwise, proxies were videoing voting even if in some of the most drearily lit stations they had set up their own lighting.

The full post is available on the Armenia Election Monitor 2008.