Armenia 2012: Six Village Polling Stations Where the Turnout Count Fell
Aygehat reported 520 voters for a list of 230. In the other five villages the final count was 1 to 23 lower than the count three hours earlier.
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 29/44, Saralanj (Lori)
School building. Registered voters: 156.
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 156 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
A very small station with 156 voters. After 84 voters by 11:00, the 14:00 report said 80, four fewer. The final count was 111.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 84 | 84 | 128.6 |
| 11:00–14:00 | 80 | -4 | — |
| 14:00–17:00 | 88 | 8 | |
| 17:00–20:00 | 111 | 23 |
Station 32/57, Aygehat
7th Street, building 1, school building. Registered voters: 230.
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 230 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
A station with 230 voters. At 14:00 the report said 520 had voted, more than twice the list, after 480 votes in three hours. At 17:00 the count was 139, 381 fewer. The final count was 149.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 40 | 40 | |
| 11:00–14:00 | 520 | 480 | 22.5 |
| 14:00–17:00 | 139 | -381 | — |
| 17:00–20:00 | 149 | 10 |
Station 33/12, Karmravan
School building. Registered voters: 176.
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 176 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
With 176 voters, the station reported 127 participants at 17:00 and 126 at 20:00: one fewer. Small decreases like this can be a typing error, but the commission never corrected it.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 19 | 19 | |
| 11:00–14:00 | 96 | 77 | 140.3 |
| 14:00–17:00 | 127 | 31 | |
| 17:00–20:00 | 126 | -1 | — |
Station 33/19, Sarapat
School building. Registered voters: 91.
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 91 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
With 91 voters, the station reported that all 91 had voted by 17:00, then a final count of 81, 10 fewer.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 39 | 39 | |
| 11:00–14:00 | 73 | 34 | |
| 14:00–17:00 | 91 | 18 | |
| 17:00–20:00 | 81 | -10 | — |
Station 33/31, Tsaghkut
Secondary school building. Registered voters: 215.
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 215 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
The count reached 141 of 215 voters at 17:00 and then fell to 118 in the final result, 23 fewer.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 70 | 70 | 154.3 |
| 11:00–14:00 | 105 | 35 | |
| 14:00–17:00 | 141 | 36 | |
| 17:00–20:00 | 118 | -23 | — |
Station 33/33, Shaghik
Secondary school building. Registered voters: 75.
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 75 registered voters (purple).
What it shows
A tiny station with 75 voters: 68 at 17:00, then 55 in the final result, 13 fewer.
| Window | Reported turnout at the end | Voters in the window | Seconds per voter |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8:00–11:00 | 20 | 20 | |
| 11:00–14:00 | 27 | 7 | |
| 14:00–17:00 | 68 | 41 | |
| 17:00–20:00 | 55 | -13 | — |
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.