All polling stations began their work at 7am and began accepting voters at 8am, chairman of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Armenia, Vahagn Hovakimyan, announced today.

"As of 8[am], we had absentees in 48 out of 42,005 polling stations. In only three cases were two chairpersons and one secretary absent. The Electoral Code allows that if any member of the electoral commission is absent, the process continues anyway; that is, the process is proceeding as normal. During this period, naturally, there were technical issues, which are being resolved quickly in progress. I wish us all peaceful, fair elections," said the CEC chairman.

Speaking about the preparatory processes, he said that the CEC has held about courses for 16 thousand members of electoral commissions alone, and courses for 4,000 technical equipment workers.

“I should inform that special courses were also held for chairpersons and secretaries; this, immediately before the elections. And before that, the CEC organized professional courses for all subjects involved in the electoral process. During this period, for example, in the alerts coming from 8 in the morning, we noticed a coincidence that, in essence, incorrect information was reported mainly by those proxies or subjects who did not participate in our courses; that is, we once again convince that participating in joint courses, mastering general knowledge is very important. And in this case we do not have false alerts, people do not see problems in [election] precincts in something that is conditioned by the requirements of the Electoral Code,” added the CEC chairman.