Head of CEC attempts to explain discrepancy between voter signatures  and actual votes

ArmInfo.  Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) Vahagn Hovakimyan asserted that the discrepancy of 27,800 votes—cited by opposition forces filing the lawsuit—between the number of signatures in voter registers and the actual number of voters is inaccurate. He made this statement during a Constitutional Court hearing on June 27.

According to Hovakimyan, the data in question stems from 340 polling  stations, 86 of which were locations where military personnel cast  their votes.

He noted that at 30 other polling stations, "a simple miscalculation  occurred." He suggested that artificial intelligence—potentially  including various free versions—may have been used during the data  processing.  "The fact is that a miscalculation was made at these  stations. The difference amounted to approximately 8,000 votes," the  CEC head stated.

At the same time, he acknowledged the presence of technical errors,  against which no one is immune, as well as invalid ballots, which  accounted for 1.15% of the total. "If you subtract those 8,000 votes,  and then exclude the data from stations where military personnel  voted and other factors, it becomes evident that there is no  discrepancy of 27,814 votes," Hovakimyan said, adding that the  plaintiffs relied on preliminary, rather than final, CEC data. He  promised that in his concluding statement at the Constitutional Court  hearing, he would present precise calculations. According to him, the  actual discrepancy is approximately 100 votes.

For her part, Deputy Chair of the CEC Nune Hovhannisyan stated that  irregularities at individual polling stations cannot serve as grounds  for invalidating the election results. She emphasized that an  election can only be declared invalid if the violations were so  widespread that they made it impossible to determine the true outcome  of the vote.