After the Recount of Parliamentary Votes in Armenia

The recounts for the June 7, 2026 Armenian parliamentary election have now concluded. The Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has issued the following final results:

Table 1. Final Results After Recounts, as published by the CEC

My previous article mentioned how:

• The preliminary results posted the day after the election showed that the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) had been just 41 votes shy of the 4% threshold needed to be part of the parliamentary seat distribution.
• The preliminary results seemed to not have accurately reflected the actual vote counts made at several precincts.
• If these errors were corrected, it seemed that the PAP would in fact reach the 4% threshold.
• The difference between the PAP getting seats or not impacted whether the Civil Contract Party would have a simple majority in parliament (> 50%) or a three-fifths supermajority (> 60%), which is needed to pass certain measures unilaterally, such as amending the Electoral Code.

Now that we have the final results, it can be shown that the PAP’s complaints were substantiated. When the precinct-by-precinct results were corrected to accurately reflect the tallies on the signed protocols prepared on election night, the PAP did in fact have the votes needed to pass the 4% threshold.

What happened next is quite remarkable; it had the effect of sinking the PAP back below the 4% threshold.

The Three Precincts

Precinct 10/51 is in Yerevan’s southern suburb of Nubarashen. A large group of soldiers showed up to the precinct to vote just before 8:00pm, which is when the precinct closes. While those who are in the room at 8:00pm are allowed to vote, further examination of security footage showed that there were soldiers who arrived after 8:00pm that were permitted to vote, in contravention of the Electoral Code. The CEC declared the results from this precinct to be invalid, acting on a complaint from a representative of the Strong Armenia alliance. All 1,287 votes from this precinct were thrown out.

Precinct 12/13 is not far away in the village (not the city) of Abovyan, between Yerevan and Artashat. In Armenian elections, voters receive a separate ballot paper for each party that is running. They cast their vote by choosing one party’s ballot paper and putting it in a secrecy envelope before dropping it into the ballot box. At Precinct 12/13, one of the parties’ ballot papers, specifically the National Democratic Axis Pan-Armenian Party, commonly known as Sasna Tsrer, was not given to voters along with the others. The Territorial Electoral Commission (TEC) for the Artashat area declared the results from this precinct to be invalid. All 809 votes from this precinct were thrown out.

Precinct 35/65 is in the city of Agarak, near Meghri, on the Armenia-Iran border. Here as well, soldiers arrived at the precinct after the 8:00pm closing time but were permitted to vote. The CEC declared the results from this precinct to be invalid, acting on another complaint from a representative of the Strong Armenia alliance. All 1,315 votes from this precinct were thrown out.

Throwing Your Vote Away

My previous article explained the concept of “official inaccuracies” written into Armenia’s Electoral Code. That section has an additional clause that will carry major consequences for the next five years. Clause 5 of Article 72 of the Electoral Code states:

“If the voting results in an electoral precinct are declared invalid, the number of voting participants in that precinct shall be recorded as the total amount of inaccuracies in the precinct.”

The result of declaring the results of those three precincts invalid is that all parties receive zero votes from those three precincts, BUT the number of voters who showed up there still count toward the denominator for calculating whether a party met the 4% threshold.

If those three precincts had not had their results declared invalid, the final election results would have been as follows:

Table 2. Election Results if 10/51, 12/13, and 35/65 were not declared invalid

“These Are Not the Droids You’re Looking For”

Amid all the errors that the CEC has made over the past week, the most blatant is a line they wrote in their June 14, 2026 Decision 258-A on the Results of the June 7, 2026 Armenian National Assembly Election. It reads:

“The Central Electoral Commission finds that declaring the results of precincts 12/13, 10/51 and 35/65 invalid does not impact the results of the election.”

That statement is factually incorrect.

For the PAP, the impact is getting zero seats instead of five. For Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party, the impact is getting a three-fifths supermajority instead of a simple majority, and being able to make unilateral changes to the Electoral Code and a host of other important legislation.