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Thousands Again Turn To Courts For Voting Permits


By Anush Dashtents
Thousands of Armenians whose names were erroneously omitted from voter lists again flocked to courts Wednesday to restore their voting rights and participate in the ongoing presidential election.

Long lines formed outside court buildings across the country as angry voters scrambled for rulings authorizing them to cast ballots. Officials said more than 7,000 of them were reinstated in the voter registers by late afternoon.

But there were also those who turned back home, tired of waiting in the lines for hours. “This is outrageous,” said one angry woman who came to the court of first instance in Yerevan with a small child.

“I’ve tried to find my name in various precincts but to no avail,” said another female voter. “Now I’m hoping that my name will be reinstated.”

Some suspected that they were deliberately left off the lists. “They always remove my name because I always vote against the ruling regimes,” said one man. “This is contemptuous of the people,” said another Yerevan resident.

Inaccuracies in the voter lists have been chronic in Armenia in recent years. The Central Election Commission and local governments that keep track of the voters have repeatedly tried to rectify the numerous errors in response to complaints from election candidates and international organizations. The CEC chairman, Artak Sahradian, claimed that this time the problem was not as acute as it was in the past.

(Photolur photo)
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