CEC not required to order automatic re-vote

PanARMENIAN.Net - After invalidating voting results, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) is not required to automatically call a repeat vote, CEC Chairman Vahagn Hovakimyan has said.

According to him, when making such a decision, the commission must take into account the protection of voters’ genuine will, the principle of proportionality, and the risk of tactical voting, as a partial re-vote could lead to greater distortion than the violation it is intended to remedy, Factor.am reported.

“The Central Electoral Commission should not automatically schedule a repeat vote after declaring voting results invalid at a polling station. When making such a decision, the CEC must consider the protection of voters’ genuine will and the legality of the election outcome. Therefore, the commission must choose the measure that is necessary, proportionate, and does not create a greater distortion than the violation whose consequences are being addressed.

In the case of a partial re-vote, the following problem arises. Voters who participated in the original vote cast their ballots without knowing the overall outcome. They did not know who was leading, what the vote margin was, which force would pass the threshold, or how their vote would affect the final result. Participants in a repeat vote, however, would be voting under different circumstances. They may already know the overall picture, which in this case covers 99.8 percent of election participants.

Under such conditions, a voter’s choice may be shaped not by their original political preference and free expression of will, but by calculations aimed at altering a known result. This risk is commonly described as tactical voting.

The Venice Commission has also acknowledged that a partial re-vote is not always an appropriate remedy. Its urgent report of 2025 states that if violations concern only specific polling stations, the response may in principle be limited to those stations. However, the same approach contains an important exception: a partial re-vote may not be an appropriate remedy if a new vote at those stations, because of the possibility of tactical voting, cannot guarantee a fair electoral outcome,” he said.

Hovakimyan added that the issue is also evident from the perspective of equal voting rights, since a repeat vote could undermine voter equality by placing one group of voters in substantially different conditions from others.

He also noted that the approach of Armenia’s Constitutional Court is important in this regard. According to the court, when assessing the consequences of electoral violations, the rights of voters who cast their ballots legally must also be protected. If the will of voters who participated in the original vote has already been lawfully expressed, a subsequent re-vote should not have a secondary and calculated influence on that will.

“Therefore, when deciding whether to order a repeat vote, the CEC must also consider whether the same free and equal environment that existed on election day can be guaranteed. Does the already known result create a risk of tactical voting? Will the rights of voters who have already voted legally be affected? Have the sources of unlawful or corrupt influence been neutralized?

If the answers to these questions show that a repeat vote will not ensure a free, equal, and fair result, then it should not be ordered. Refusing to hold a repeat vote in such a case does not mean ignoring the violation. It means avoiding a remedy that could further deepen the distortion of voters’ will.

The CEC must be guided not by a mechanical approach to repeat voting, but by the constitutional principles of free and equal elections, proportionality, and protection of the genuine will of voters, as an independent body entrusted with overseeing the legality of elections,” said CEC Chairman Vahagn Hovakimyan.

On June 14, the final results of the June 7 parliamentary elections were published. Civil Contract received 726,819 votes, or 49.7456%; Strong Armenia won 340,006 votes, or 23.2710%; and the Armenia Alliance secured 144,983 votes, or 9.9231%. The Prosperous Armenia party failed to clear the 4% threshold and will not enter parliament, receiving 58,287 votes, or 3.9893%.

Civil Contract will hold 64 seats in parliament, including three seats allocated to representatives of national minorities. The Strong Armenia party will receive 29 seats, including one seat for an Assyrian representative, while the Armenia Alliance will receive 12 seats.