The proposal, passed by a large majority in the country’s parliament in October, is designed to redefine the respective powers of parliament and the president.
Under the present constitution, it will be adopted if more than half of the votes cast in the referendum support it, provided that this number represents at least a quarter of those on the electoral roll (just over 2.5m citizens, according to police figures). So theoretically the change should require about 650,000 ‘yes’ votes.
However, although official reports of the last parliamentary and presidential elections show a turnout of 1.6m voters, in fact generally only a million or so Armenians take part in elections, and the extra supposed support for the ruling Republican Party is usually the result of rigging and the votes of ‘dead souls’ – the half million Armenians working abroad, mostly in Russia. Billboard in Yerevan's Baghramyan Avenue advocating a yes vote. Photo CC: Yerevantsi, 2015Rigging is also facilitated by the Electoral Code. In the past this allowed people to vote only on production of a passport. But on the eve of the referendum, Parliament voted through an amendment to allow voting on an ID card, without any system of checks on whether its holder had voted at more than one polling station.
