There is no need to find political context in this title and draw assumptions as to whom the judgement day is for, especially when every single careless word may be considered as advocacy.
May 12 (and in general all the elections of Armenia) has one thing in common with the judgement day – the dead resurrect. However no judgement day will take place. Instead they go to the precinct, complete their civil duty, and go back where they came from. The resurrected ones only communicate with PEC members and don’t even meet their relatives.
It’s hard to tell how many of the dead will resurrect to vote this time. However, according to official data, the number of the dead persons is 9,607 as of April 2007. According to the Passport and Visa Bureau of RA Police, Alvina Zakaryan, exactly that many dead persons were withdrawn from the voters’ list. And thus the final number of the voters is 2 million 285 thousand and 830. The 2003 elections didn’t differ much from the current ones -2 million 340 thousand and 744. During the parliamentary elections of 1999 there were fewer people in the voters’ lists – 2 million 198 thousand and 544. The difference is more than 140 thousand, which at least can be explained by the census of 2004. Also, as of January 1, 2007, the official number of the RA population was 3 million 222 thousand and 900. People are really interested what percent of the voters will vote. As predicting is the most unappreciated work, it’s better to present the official numbers during the previous presidential and parliamentary elections in a form of a table (check the website of the CEC).
The voter lists of the 2005 constitutional referendum is presented separately by us because we think it’s a totally different situation. In general, experience shows that the highest voter turnout is during presidential elections. Parliamentary elections and referendums are next. However, November 27, 2005 showed that there is no complete truth for such things. One million 514 thousand and 545 out of the total 2 million 317 thousand and 462 voters participated in the Referendum of 2005. That amounts to 65.3% of voters. This means that our citizens had more interest than in the first stage of the 2003 presidential elections. One more good memory is that 93.2% of the voters, who participated in the Referendum, voted “Yes” for the Constitution.
Nevertheless, it’s hard to say what the turnout is going to be this time. We speak in approximations, just like our sociologist Aharon Adibekyan. Let’s remind that according to his polls, 56% of the voters will actually vote. This means that about 1 million 280 thousand will vote. Of course this attitude is specific to the poll results of Adibekyan. In order to avoid the accusations of campaigning, we won’t look too deep into his surveys. However, if you like numbers, you can just add up the number of Armenia’s political party members and the total will compare well with the actual votes, which parties will receive during the elections. It may turn out that the total number of members of all the political parties exceeds double the number of our population.
You may even bet with your friends. You just write down your predictions and guesses about the results of elections and on May 13 the player who bet right takes the prize. However, if you lose, and if the CEC announces data which were quite far from your predictions, don’t doubt your analytical abilities. Only next time, remember. The important thing is not how many votes parties will get, but how many the CEC will publicize. Thus, do these things without extra emotions.