Armenia 2012: Talin, Orgov, Agarakavan and Akunk, Five Polling Stations Where Turnout Was Rewritten
Orgov reported 768 voters for a list of 390; a Talin station went from 665 to 10 to 1,028. Five stations in one area account for almost half of all 2012 decreases.
Original page on electionscount.info: “Negative” participation, 2012On 6 May 2012 the official turnout of these polling stations went down between two reports, which cannot happen in a real count: each report includes everyone who voted since 8:00. The monitoring site drew a chart for each such station from the turnout published by elections.am. They are among the 20 stations with "negative" participation in 2012.
How to read these charts
The chart has three panels, all for the same polling station and the same four reporting times (11:00, 14:00, 17:00, 20:00):
- Left: the average number of seconds one voter spent at the station in each 3-hour window (10,800 seconds divided by the voters in that window). Low = fast; 0 = the count went down.
- Middle: how many people voted in each 3-hour window. A triangle below the red line is a negative number, an impossible decrease.
- Right: the cumulative turnout reported at each hour (blue) against the number of registered voters (purple line). Red labels mark the reports that broke the rules.
Station 15/28, Orgov
School building. Registered voters: 390.
How to read this chart
Left: seconds per voter in each 3-hour window. Middle: voters in each window (below the red line = a decrease). Right: reported turnout (blue) against the 390 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
The most impossible numbers of the 20. The station had 390 registered voters, yet the 17:00 report said 768 had voted, almost twice as many people as were on the list, after 532 votes in three hours (one every 20 seconds). The final count was 300: 468 fewer than at 17:00.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 100 | 100 | 108.0 |
| 11:00–14:00 | 236 | 136 | 79.4 |
| 14:00–17:00 | 768 | 532 | 20.3 |
| 17:00–20:00 | 300 | -468 | — |
Station 15/29, Talin
Sports school building. Registered voters: 1,857.
How to read this chart
Left: seconds per voter in each 3-hour window. Middle: voters in each window (below the red line = a decrease). Right: reported turnout (blue) against the 1,857 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
At 14:00 the count was 700; at 17:00 it was 277, 423 fewer; at 20:00 it was 1,213. That means 936 people voted in the last three hours, one every 11.5 seconds. No polling station can register voters that fast.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 300 | 300 | 36.0 |
| 11:00–14:00 | 700 | 400 | 27.0 |
| 14:00–17:00 | 277 | -423 | — |
| 17:00–20:00 | 1,213 | 936 | 11.5 |
Station 15/30, Talin
House of Culture building. Registered voters: 1,606.
How to read this chart
Left: seconds per voter in each 3-hour window. Middle: voters in each window (below the red line = a decrease). Right: reported turnout (blue) against the 1,606 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
At 14:00, 665 people had voted. The 17:00 report said 10. In the last three hours the count then rose by 1,018 to 1,028, one voter every 10.6 seconds, the fastest of all 20 stations apart from Achajur.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 247 | 247 | 43.7 |
| 11:00–14:00 | 665 | 418 | 25.8 |
| 14:00–17:00 | 10 | -655 | — |
| 17:00–20:00 | 1,028 | 1,018 | 10.6 |
Station 15/32, Agarakavan
School building. Registered voters: 761.
How to read this chart
Left: seconds per voter in each 3-hour window. Middle: voters in each window (below the red line = a decrease). Right: reported turnout (blue) against the 761 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
The station had 761 voters. At 17:00 the report said 985 had voted, more than the whole list, after 635 votes in three hours. The final count was 593: 392 fewer than at 17:00.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 162 | 162 | 66.7 |
| 11:00–14:00 | 350 | 188 | 57.5 |
| 14:00–17:00 | 985 | 635 | 17.0 |
| 17:00–20:00 | 593 | -392 | — |
Station 15/33, Akunk (Aragats)
House of Culture building. Registered voters: 548.
How to read this chart
Left: seconds per voter in each 3-hour window. Middle: voters in each window (below the red line = a decrease). Right: reported turnout (blue) against the 548 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
Turnout rose to 535 at 17:00, almost the whole list of 548, then the final count was 390, 145 fewer.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 94 | 94 | 114.9 |
| 11:00–14:00 | 264 | 170 | 63.5 |
| 14:00–17:00 | 535 | 271 | 39.9 |
| 17:00–20:00 | 390 | -145 | — |
Why it matters
A report that falls means that at least one of the station's official numbers is false: either voters were announced who had not come, or the final protocol was cut back. When the fall is followed by hundreds of votes at a speed of 10–20 seconds per voter, or when a report exceeds the number of registered voters, the numbers point to signatures and ballots added on paper. See polling station capacity and the method of comparing election numbers.
Data and sources on this site
From the book
This article is based on Chapters IV and VI of Electoral Rights and Election Falsification by Lyudvig Khachatryan, which explains the full method, the formulas and the cases behind it.