Armenians can’t vote abroad. Why it matters

Nicholas Castillo

Armenians head to the polls on June 7 to vote in national elections that have been replete with accusations of foreign interference. For a country of three million with hundreds of thousands of citizens abroad, one electoral regulation seems likely to play a notable role: citizens can only cast ballots if they are physically present in Armenia.

Armenia is one of only a handful of countries that solely permit votes to be cast from within its borders. Most countries allow citizens to vote from abroad, either through mail-in ballots or polling stations set up internationally. Yerevan, however, barred voting abroad in 2007 following the introduction of dual citizenship. Only small numbers of diplomatic personnel and their families are allowed to vote in Armenian elections from outside of the country.

Other countries barring citizens from casting ballots internationally include Israel and Ireland.

For countries with large numbers of citizens abroad, international voting can prove decisive. Moldova, with a domestic population of 2.4 million and 1.1 million citizens abroad, serves as one example. In Moldova’s 2024 referendum for setting EU accession as a state goal, votes by the EU-based Moldovan diaspora helped deliver a European victory in the tightly contested election. That same year, EU diaspora voters helped re-elect the pro-Western President Maia Sandu, defeating Russia-aligned forces. 

In response to the surge in voter turnout abroad during those elections, the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs further expanded the availability of voting abroad. By the 2025 parliamentary elections, Chisinau established 297 polling stations across 41 countries. Voting by mail was also introduced at four additional polling stations. In total, this was roughly a 30% increase from the number of polling stations the previous year.

Meanwhile, Armenia’s neighbor, Georgia, banned voting from international polling stations in 2025. Critics described the decision as a strategic move to cut the largely anti-government diaspora out of politics. Government officials defended the move, saying Georgians abroad receive only “filtered information” impacting their votes. In Georgia’s 2024 parliamentary elections, only 13% of international voters supported the ruling Georgian Dream party. In total, Georgian authorities provided citizens abroad with 67 polling stations during the national elections. 

For Yerevan, many view the large Armenian diaspora in Russia as a potential point of leverage in Armenia’s domestic politics. Aside from the million-plus ethnic Armenian Russians, hundreds of thousands of Armenian citizens reside in Russia at any given moment, the largest community of Armenian citizens abroad. Over 100,000 Armenians are thought to have gone to Russia for work in the first quarter of 2026 alone. And, much of the reporting and speculation surrounding Russian influence campaigns in Armenia’s parliamentary election has involved Armenian citizens in Russia. 

In the Moldovan case, geography does appear to affect diaspora voting. In Chisinau’s 2024 EU referendum, Moldovans based in Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Romania voted in favor of EU accession by a large margin. Amid reports of vote buying and mobilization by pro-Russian actors, those voting from Russia, Bulgaria, and Israel mostly voted against the referendum. Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shore, who fled Moldova in 2019 in the face of fraud charges, now resides in Russia and is believed to be involved in Kremlin orchestrated influence schemes. 

In response to allegations of Moscow’s interference, Chisinau has moved to decrease the number of polling stations in Russia in recent years from 19 to two located in the Moscow diplomatic mission.

Residency does not always map onto political preferences however. In contrast to the Moldovan example, Romanian emigres often are more likely to support far-right or Euroskeptic parties, even while residing within the EU.