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The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Election Observation Mission for the February 18 presidential elections in Armenia has released a post-election interim report. 

The report’s chapter titled “Announcement of Final Results” reads: “On 25 February, the CEC announced the final election results with Mr. Sargsyan as the elected president.9 The results protocol was signed by all seven CEC members.

An OSCE/ODIHR EOM analysis of final results as published by the CEC shows a close correlation between the voter turnout and the number of votes for the incumbent, with PECs with above-average turnout also having a higher share of votes for Mr. Sargsyan. Out of the 1,988 polling stations, 1,746 have 300 or more registered voters.10 In 144 of those, voter turnout exceeded 80 per cent, which seems implausibly high; the incumbent received above 80 per cent of the votes cast in 115 of these stations. In 198 out of the 303 stations where turnout was between 70 and 80 per cent, the incumbent received more than 70 per cent of the votes. Among 249 stations where turnout was below 50 per cent, Mr. Sargsyan received more than 50 per cent in 40, and Mr. Hovannisyan received more than 50 per cent in 155. The tendency of higher results for the incumbent observed at the majority of stations with high turnout raises concerns regarding the confidence over the integrity of the electoral process.

According to the final results as published by the CEC, there were 50,976 invalid ballots (3.4 per cent of all votes cast), which varied widely, from 7.9 per cent in TEC 8 and 7.3 per cent in TEC 7 to 1.5 per cent in TECs 18, 20 and 24.11 The number of ballots declared invalid in some PECs raises concern; for example, in PECs 7/9, 8/8, 12/22, 19/1, 19/5, 19/21, 28/26 and 34/29 the number of invalid ballots exceeded 20 per cent of all ballots cast.

The OSCE/ODIHR EOM was able to compare 55 certified PEC protocol extracts obtained by IEOM observers against the official results posted on the CEC website. No serious discrepancies were found, although there were 12 cases of minor technical mistakes related to the numbers of registered voters in the polling stations.”