A Constitutional Court judge asked why Armenia's Central Election Commission waited four days before responding to reports of polling stations where voting continued after the official closing time.

Proceedings continue at Armenia's Constitutional Court over challenges to the results of the June 7 parliamentary elections. During this stage of the hearing, the judges questioned the parties to the case.

Constitutional Court Judge Edgar Shatiryan asked the Chair of the Central Election Commission (CEC) about two polling stations where voting continued after 8:00 p.m., with military personnel casting ballots after the official closing time.

"Why did the CEC, as the superior election commission, respond to these incidents only four days later, given that reports were submitted immediately after voting had ended?" the judge asked, according to Factor.am .

Responding to the question, CEC Chair Vahagn Hovakimyan said that until June 9, election participants had the legal deadline to request that polling station election commissions invalidate voting results.

"In other words, we were expected to collect information on the issues and address them essentially after June 9. That is also when the recount process begins. Recounts were taking place simultaneously in all 38 territorial election commissions. We started dealing with the issue on June 10 because it had already become clear that no election participant had filed a request to invalidate the results, while there was significant public interest. The violations at these four polling stations had attracted considerable public attention, and we needed to examine them thoroughly, assess them, and ensure that they would not overshadow the overall election results," he said.

On June 26, the Constitutional Court began hearing the consolidated case based on petitions filed by seven political forces challenging the results of the June 7 parliamentary elections. The proceedings are continuing.