On June 14, 2026, the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) tabulated the results of the June 7 elections to the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia. It also examined the petitions submitted by the "Strong Armenia" alliance of parties and the "Wings of Unity" party seeking the invalidation of the election results. Prior to this, on June 12, 2026, Territorial Electoral Commission (TEC) No. 12 had invalidated the voting results of polling station 12/13, taking into consideration the absence of the ballot papers for the pan-Armenian party No. 8, the "National-Democratic Pole," at the said precinct. Furthermore, on June 11, the CEC invalidated the voting results in polling stations 10/51 and 35/65, given that military personnel concentrated at those stations continued to vote after the official conclusion of the voting period.

According to Part 1 of Article 101 of the Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia, if violations occur during the elections that could have impacted the election results, the Central Electoral Commission adopts a decision to hold a revote in individual polling stations, provided that such a measure can rectify the consequences of those violations.

By its Decision No. 258-A of June 14, 2026, the CEC determined that the invalidation of the voting results in polling stations 12/13, 10/51, and 35/65 did not affect the overall election results. This assessment was articulated in a single sentence, devoid of proper substantiation or any adequate and publicly comprehensible explanation, and no revote was scheduled for the precincts in question. According to alternative calculations, had the aforementioned three polling stations been included, the "Prosperous Armenia" party would have surpassed the 4% electoral threshold stipulated by the Electoral Code. Instead, due to the invalidation of those polling station results, the party was deprived of the requisite votes to overcome the threshold, thereby losing its parliamentary mandates.

On June 15, in a statement concerning the refusal to schedule a revote following the invalidation of the voting results in the three polling stations, CEC Chairman Vahagn Hovakimyan attempted to elucidate the CEC's decision by citing the Venice Commission's 2025 urgent report on the cancellation of election results and the reservations articulated therein. Despite the risks associated with organizing a revote in a limited number of polling stations and the corresponding legitimacy of the CEC's expressed position, it is impossible to ignore the fact that the failure to schedule a revote fundamentally disrupts the distribution of parliamentary mandates, the composition of the incoming National Assembly, and its overall representativeness.

It is imperative to note that the "Akanates" observation mission has obtained substantial information indicating instances of vote-buying, coerced participation in campaign activities, and forced voting in favor of the "Prosperous Armenia" party during the pre-election period. These incidents have been formally reported to law enforcement agencies. Furthermore, the Anti-Corruption Committee has documented numerous such cases (according to published data, between February 7 and June 9, 2026, 115 criminal proceedings were initiated concerning electoral offenses of a corrupt nature, 24 of which approximately 1/5 of the total pertained to the "Prosperous Armenia" party). The Anti-Corruption Committee has also released a series of audio recordings corroborating these facts.

Nevertheless, the "Akanates" observation mission considers the CEC's assessment, that the invalidation of the voting results in the aforementioned three polling stations does not affect the overall election results, to be highly contestable, and fundamentally questions the decision not to schedule a revote. We officially record that the adopted decision is problematic from the standpoint of domestic electoral legislation, international legal standards, and the imperative of ensuring public trust in the electoral process.

Although the CEC's assertion—that conducting a revote while preliminary national results are already known could induce "tactical voting," and therefore a revote should not be held—was derived from the Council of Europe Venice Commission’s report, in this specific instance, it cannot override the overarching imperative to ascertain the actual electoral reality of a political force overcoming the threshold.

Addressing the CEC's reliance on the Venice Commission's positions and international standards, it must be underscored that electoral administration cannot be founded upon selective interpretations of international instruments while disregarding their fundamental principles. Section 3.3 of the Venice Commission's Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters (CDL-AD(2002)023) unequivocally mandates the provision of an effective legal remedy in the context of electoral disputes. The violations recorded in this specific instance—namely, the continuation of voting after the closure of polling stations and the absence of a particular political force's ballot papers—fall exclusively within the domain of the electoral bodies' administrative responsibility. According to the OSCE/ODIHR guidelines on election observation and administration, the burden of a state's administrative error can never be shifted onto the voter.

The impact of more than 3,000 votes across the problematic polling stations on the distribution of mandates and the crossing of the parliamentary threshold cannot be dismissed without the presentation of a substantiated and publicly accessible mathematical calculation. The failure to provide such empirical evidence severely undermines the transparency of the process and rightfully jeopardizes the public perception of the administrative act's legality. Justifying the disenfranchisement of these voters (the deprivation of their active suffrage) through mere assumptions about tactical voting directly violates the legal principle of proportionality, especially given that the cancellation of the voting results in these specific stations directly caused one of the participating parties to fail the electoral threshold. Under these circumstances, the restriction of electoral rights manifested via the nullification of votes cannot be deemed a "proportionate and necessary measure" to rectify an error in electoral administration.

The "Akanates" observation mission asserts that public trust in elections remains the cornerstone of legitimacy for any democratic process. This decision by the CEC establishes a dangerous precedent that has the potential to profoundly overshadow the public's perception of fairness within the electoral process.