CEC Invalidated 213 Votes to Push Prosperous Armenia Below 4% Threshold

During the post-election recount process, Armenia’s Central Election Commission made a move that dramatically altered the parliamentary composition: it invalidated all votes at two to three precincts on the grounds that soldiers had voted after permitted hours. The result was devastating for Prosperous Armenia, which lost 213 votes in those invalidated precincts alone. This action effectively pushed Prosperous Armenia below the 4% threshold required to enter parliament, a margin of just 65 to 70 disputed votes out of 1.5 million cast.

Host Hovik Manucharyan argues that the CEC’s decision violated Armenian law. The law explicitly states that if irregularities could affect the final election results, a re-vote must be held in those specific precincts. Instead, the CEC claimed it wanted to avoid “new distortions” and refused to conduct a re-vote. Manucharyan points out that the responsibility for the irregularities lay directly with the CEC itself: one precinct was missing ballot number 8 entirely, a clear CEC failure, and the decision to allow soldiers to vote after 8 p.m. was approved by precinct chiefs aligned with the election commission.

The manipulation had downstream consequences. Civil Contract gained a three-fifths majority with 64 of 105 parliamentary seats, enabling it to elect judges and pass major legislation without meaningful opposition veto power. Legal experts cited by Manucharyan argued the CEC had two options: conduct a re-run in the disputed precincts or annul the entire election. Instead, the commission did neither, keeping Prosperous Armenia out of parliament and consolidating Civil Contract’s supermajority. The decision effectively transformed the election outcome without procedural justification.