The contribution of statistical time delay and formative time to total electrical breakdown time delay in an argon-filled tube at 4 mbar pressure for afterglow periods from 3 ms to 300 s has been analyzed. This contribution was analyzed on the basis of total electrical breakdown time-delay experimental data and their standard deviation. It was shown that for values of afterglow period from 3 to 70 ms, the contribution of statistical time delay to total electrical breakdown time delay can be neglected. For afterglow periods higher then 70 ms the experimental results of total electrical breakdown time delay can be described by Laue's distribution, which was developed for statistical time delay. It shows that in this case the formative time is much smaller than the statistical time delay, so the total electrical breakdown time delay is approximately equal to the statistical time delay. (C) 2008 American Vacuum Society.