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13.09.2016
Political Forces Participating in 4+4+4 Negotiating Format Sign a Statement
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On September 13, a working sitting of final compilation and signing of the document on organization and holding of the electoral processes in the Republic of Armenia by the working group of 4+4+4 format, during which the representatives of the NA RPA, PAP, ANC, Rule of Law and ARF Factions signed a statement.

During the sitting the representatives of the political forces, presenting their views on the statement, qualified it as a historical event, which can be a turning point and raise the public trust towards the electoral processes.

STATEMENT

On mutual consent over defining organizational-technical mechanisms of the control over the legitimacy of electoral process in the new Electoral Code

Regarding the Draft Electoral Code, the parties participating in the 4+4+4 negotiating format:

- highlighting free and fair elections and public trust enhancement towards the electoral system in Armenia ,

- realizing that the trust enhancement towards the electoral system is conditioned by the establishment of wide public consensus on the new Electoral Code,

- taking into consideration the statement of the RA Government on the fact that for the application of the preliminary electronic voter registration system with fingerprint authentication - designed on June 16, 2016 by the political agreement reached between the five factions of the RA National Assembly and the representatives of the RA Government - insurmountable obstacles occurred:

- in the created situation, setting the task to replace the preliminary electronic voter registration system with additional mechanisms of control over the legality of the electoral process, announce that they have reached an agreement to bring to life the following provisions and measures, taking necessary steps and making legislative amendments:

1. Voters’ obligation to sign in voter list will be restored for the full formation of the signed voters’ lists.

2. After the voting, after the voter list packing, the observers, candidates’ proxies and the candidates will be provided the reference for electronic device with a stamp and the commission chairman’s signature, where the numbers of the appropriate precinct and polling station and voter’s next number having taken part in the voting shall be mentioned.

3. After counting the participated voters’ number (the counting is done on the basis of the signatures existing in the signed voters’ lists) the lists (except for the military list) shall be packed in a separate package, which shall be stamped. The Commission Chairman and the Secretary sign on the package. The candidates’ proxies and other members of the Commission also may sign on the package. The packed lists together with the other electoral documents shall be submitted to the Territorial Electoral Commission.

4. On the next voting day, from 12:00 the Territorial Electoral Commission shall begin the scanning process of all the lists. The candidates, the members of the Precinct Electoral Commission, candidates’ proxies, the mass media representatives and the observers may take part in those activities. The lists shall be taken out from the sacks, scanned (at least 300 dpi quality) and PNG or PDF files shall be formed, which not later that after 24 hours of beginning the works shall be published in a separate section of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) website, according to Electoral Commissions and electoral polling stations with the possibility of searching the numbers of the Territorial Electoral Commissions and polling stations. All information existing in the voters’ lists (except for the data on voter’s ID) shall be distinctly visible. The mentioned fact is an official publication. The lists are posted in a way it shall be possible to download and print from the website.

5. The right to submit an application on voting instead of other persons have:

1) party participating in the elections,

2) candidate of Community Head or member of Council of Elders during the local self-government elections (except for aldermen’s elections in Yerevan , Gyumri and Vanadzor),

3) candidate’s proxy,

4) respective Precinct Electoral Commission member

5) the citizen who has not taken part in voting, before whose name a note is made on participation in voting.

6. An application on voting instead of another person may be submitted only to the respective Territorial Electoral Commission until the third day at 11:00 after voting. The applications shall be submitted separately, according to the persons being away from the RA and those who were in the RA, but didn’t participate in voting.

If the application is submitted by the breach of this part, then initiation of administrative proceedings on the basis of the application shall be rejected, and the application shall not be examined on the merits.

7. the application on the basis of voting instead of other persons shall be considered by preserving the main principles of administration designed by the law of the Republic of Armenia on Administration Principles and Administrative Proceedings, particularly, the principle of presumption of authenticity.


8. While examining the applications on the persons being absent from the RA the Territorial Electoral Commission shall:

a. The information on the absence of person mentioned in the complaint from the RA shall be checked by the Border Electronic Management Information (BEMI) system used by the frontier troops of the National Security Service adjunct to the RA Government. If it is revealed on the basis of the BEMI system data that the application relates to the person who crossing the RA border after the beginning of voting, then the application shall be considered unsubstantial on the part of that voter, and the procedure shall be terminated on that part. If it is revealed on the basis of the BEMI system data that that person has not crossed the RA border or for the last time crossed the RA territory when entering the country, then the application on voting instead of other person shall be considered unsubstantial and the procedure shall be terminated on that part.

b. it shall be detected whether the same voter has been registered through the technical equipment.

c. in case of registration by the technical equipment and presence of ID card it shall be also check whether the fingerprint given during the registration coincides with the fingerprints existing in the electronic data of the ID cards at the Passport and Visa Department of the RA Police adjunct to the RA Government.

The RA Police, the National Security Service adjunct to the RA Government and if necessary other bodies may be involved in the organization of the check-ups of the applications on the basis of voting instead of other persons.

If there is no sufficient evidence confirming the voting by a person then by the use of the principle of presumption of authenticity it shall be considered that voting instead of other person was held.

Regardless of the examination procedure of the application in the Electoral Commission all the applications shall also be sent to law enforcement bodies.

9. The peculiarities of the applications on voting for other persons (the solutions presented below pursue the goal also to guarantee the prevention of the possibility (deliberateness) to thwart the electoral process):

The statement of any person on the fact that this or that citizen (citizens) has not (have not) participated in the voting and another person (persons) has (have) voted instead of him/her (them) shall be enclosed with the application on the basis of voting instead of another person. The one making the announcement shall also ensure in written form and sign that he/she is aware of the criminal responsibility designed for presenting untrue statement on voting instead of other person. The one presenting the application, in turn, shall ensure in writing and sign that he/she is aware of the criminal responsibility designed for using the statement with false signature (signed in the name of another or fictitious person) on voting instead of other person.

The application and the statement, including the signature on the criminal responsibility designedfor presenting untrue statement on voting instead of other person or using the statement with false signature, shall be filled in on the document approved by the CEC (which shall be downloaded from the CEC website) and contain the instructions established by the Electoral Code. The application shall be submitted in the original and signed exclusively by the person presenting the application. The statement shall be presented in the original and signed exclusively by the person making the statement.

In case of absence of the documents enclosed with the application or not preserving their ratification conditions administrative procedure shall not be initiated. If the same person presented more than one application on voting instead of several persons and while checking it is revealed that at least one statement not corresponding with the reality has been enclosed with the application, then the further debate of the applications presented by that person shall be stopped, the procedure shall be terminated, and all the materials shall be submitted to the authorized law enforcement body. the information voting instead of another person checked and clarified before that shall be taken into consideration.

10. As additional guarantees for exclusion (prevention) of voting instead of other persons review of the articles concerning the electoral crimes of the Electoral Code shall be done to provide the efficiency of the punishment, particularly, in the RA Criminal Code:

a. the size of the fine established by the paragraph 1 of Article 149 shall be increased from seven hundred times to thousand times, and the punishment under paragraph 2 shall be for 3-5 years, as well as restriction of right to be on the position of state or local self-government body, a member of Electoral Committee, candidate’s proxy and observer for 1-3 years for both paragraphs as an additional punishment.

b. in restriction of right to be on the position of state or local self-government body, a member of Electoral Committee, candidate’s proxy and observer for 1-3 years as an additional punishment under Article 150 shall be defined.

c. A new corpus delicti: the stealing of ballot box, signed voter lists, commission’s registry, commission’s seal, personal seals, stamps, self-adhesive stamps, coupons containing data on voter, technical equipment of electronic registration, the sack or package of electronic documents on personal motives or stemming from group interests” shall be added in the Criminal Code, and the sanctions shall be consonant with the sanctions of the amended Article 150.

11. The choice of the technical specialists for technical service of the equipment designed for registering the voters with electronic devices will be organized through testing, where any RA citizen may take part. Mechanisms will be also designed on not presented to the works of the District Electoral Committee or the responsibility of the specialists not decently fulfilling their obligations and on replacing the specialists who refused the works of the summary of the results before voting.

12. The experts of the donor organizations will be given opportunity to audit the database of the ID cards and passports giving right to take part in the election by the order of the Committee designed by Paragarph14 of this Agreement.

13. The whole process of summing up of the results of the voting in the electoral districts will be videotaped by the video cameras provided through Internet and the live broadcast of the process through specially created the website through the website (websites) will be implemented. In the horizon of the video cameras shall be the ballot box, the process of the voters’ registration, providing of the voting envelopes, voting papers, as well as summing up of the voting results, the polling centre and its entrance up to 50-metre diametre. A specialized organization, which assumes the responsibility in all electoral polling stations of the republic, is elected by competitive order for providing the video shooting for the due organization of the process. The Committee mentioned in Paragraph 14 shall carry out the authorities of the Responsible Committee and the Evaluating Committee for organizing the purchase procedure. The video materials made in any electoral poll shall be provided by the request of the parties, taking part in the elections and the organizations having observers in the elections for the Xerox-copied real price. The video materials are archived and kept according to the established order for the electoral documents.

14. To make the video and to organize the live broadcast in the polling stations, to audit the IDs and the passport database, to monitor the investment procedure of the voters’ registration through electronic devices by the decision of the RA Government a joint official commission is set up with the equal participation of the representatives of the authorities, civil society and opposition factions of the parliament. The authorities of the commission and the order of the activities are defined by the decision of the RA Government within 20 days after entering into force the amendments to the Electoral Code.

15. The mechanisms to be used by mutual consent are observed as a totality (package) and the denial from any of them or non-use on the initiative of any party may result in the elimination of the consent towards the whole package.

16. The RA Government will submit to the RA National Assembly by the legislative initiative the implementation of the appropriate amendments to the Electoral Code and the RA Criminal Code until the end of the second four-day sittings of the RA National Assembly 2016 Autumn Session.

17. This Agreement does not mean consensus over the whole Electoral Code, particularly, on the territorial lists of proportional electoral system. The agreeing parties will seek to reach consent also on other provisions during the further discussions of the Electoral Code. Highlighting, particularly, the agreements reached by the Agreement of June 16, 2016 the parties signing this Agreement will take steps in the voters’ pre-registration system investment after the elections of the National Assembly in 2017.

Naira Zohrabyan

Mher Shahgeldyan

Levon Zurabyan

Aram Manukyan

Hovhannes Sahakyan

Davit Harutyunyan

Armen Rustamyan


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