As we all know, and as I’m sure you know, there have been many complaints about the accuracy of the voter list during elections held in Armenia and about a year and a half ago, the Government decided to give the responsibility for that list to the Police and OVIR because they had a centralized and probably the most up to date database in the country. So, it was logical to centralize it because before it was compiled by the 937 or whatever local authority bodies.

The Police and OVIR have done a pretty good job with this. That is to say we’ve done some checking of the database and we know that there are very few duplicates, deaths, and any of the other technical errors which have been a problem in the past, included in the list. So, we’re now at the stage where we’re working with the Police and OVIR to regularly update the list just as it is in other countries before elections. Simply put, voter lists need to be updated because people move from one place to another and they don’t always notify the authorities when they change their address.

When you have a majoritarian system, people need to be registered for their local precinct and working with the police, we’re undertaking an exercise to alert the public as to the need for them to check the voter registry, and if necessary, change their details at OVIR.

As for who they might “vote” for, one reason I might go through the hassle of reporting their absence is to see if they actually get removed from the voters list by polling day.