Live Blog: Armenia Votes For President

UPDATE: The stamp in the passport that we reported on earlier serves as an additional security measure as voters have to sign participation lists. Therefore, if someone wipes the seal off and goes to the polling station to vote again, they may be caught by the police. RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports that they do not have evidence that this technique has been applied to forge votes.

Most serious incident report so far: of ballot stuffing in Artashat. 1 witness, denied by electoral official #armvote13 ow.ly/hOpqr

— Artur Papyan (@ditord) February 18, 2013

Mukuchian says wiping the election seals off the passports is illegal #armvote13 azatutyun.am

— Artur Papyan (@ditord) February 18, 2013

Tigran Mukuchyan is chairman of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC).

Useful hashtag analysis of #armvote13 by Katy Pearce.

#armvote13 hashtag got taken over – looks suspicious katypearce.net/cv/armvote13-h…

— Katy Pearce (@katypearce) February 18, 2013

Katy Pearce is an assistant professor of communication at the University of Washington who studies the use of Internet technologies in the former Soviet Union.

Global Voices Caucasus editor, Onnik Krikorian claims that the Twitter accounts that have hijacked #armvote13 belong to IRELI, Azerbaijan's state-funded equivalent of the pro-Putin youth movement Nashi.

Pro-Aliyev IRELI hijack the #armvote13 hashtag, but in doing so ironically risk helping Armenian President by drowning out #CivSoc voices.

— Onnik Krikorian (@onewmphoto) February 18, 2013

Kim Kardashian got a vote today.

It appears that the hashtag #armvote13 has been almost completely hijacked by spam bots claiming to represent Azerbaijanis. It's hard to tell if the accounts are real or not, but there are 3 or 4 tweets being posted that have exactly the same language.

There have not been a lot of claims of fraud thus far. This is probably the most severe. No word on confirmation, though.

TI observer witnessed over 400+ ballots being stuffed in polling station 17/5 in Artashat. #armvote13 #armenia #iditord

— Seda Muradyan (@sedamur) February 18, 2013

Observer from TI saw 400+ ballots being stuffed in polling station 17/5 in Artashat, where she was attacked by perpetrators. #armvote13

— Seda Muradyan (@sedamur) February 18, 2013

Last month, RFE/RL Armenian Service Director Harry Tamrazian interviewed President Serzh Sarkisian. Watch the entire interview (with English subtitles) here:

Ter-Petrossian voted "for the Republic of Armenia"youtu.be/5g55cR1d0xE#armvote13

— Artur Papyan (@ditord) February 18, 2013