YEREVAN, DECEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS. 967 incarcerated people (943 men and 24 women) are entitled to vote in the upcoming general election, Colonel Artyom Mkhoyan – Director of the Department of Corrections (DOC) at the Ministry of Justice – told ARMENPRESS.

By felony disenfranchisement, people sentenced for deliberate serious crimes don’t have the right to vote, he said. Those who are declared unable to perform employment functions by a court of law also don’t have the right to vote.

Asked about the accessibility of prisoners to the campaigning, Colonel Mkhoyan said that imprisoned individuals follow the campaigning through the news media. “In addition, the Central Electoral Commission has defined the procedure of submitting the number of registered voters in prisons and organizing the voting in the prisons,” he said, adding that electoral officials send the campaigning materials of parties and blocs running for parliament, as well as other materials about the election to correctional facilities 10 days ahead of election day.

Asked if candidates running for parliament have the right to campaign in the correctional facilities, the Colonel said that the law doesn’t envisage the conditions and specificities of holding pre-election campaigns at correctional facilities.

The early election of parliament will take place December 9.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan