Election bodies to conduct audit, recount of 8,494 polling stations

KABUL (Pajhwok): Pajhwok Afghan News reliably learned on Wednesday that the votes of 8,494 polling stations will be audited and recounted.

According to a document, most of the identified polling stations that will be audited and recounted are in the following ten provinces.

In Kabul 1,197 polling stations,  in Nangarhar 841, Kandahar 783, Paktia 740, Baghlan 722, Helmand 542, Paktika 407, Ghazni 402, Khost 350 and in Badakhshan 322 polling stations.

A well-placed source in the Independent Election Commission (IEC) told Pajhwok Afghan News that election bodies wanted to start the audit and recount process of votes jointly and efforts in this regard were underway.

The source said that the number of polling stations to be audited and recounted will not exceed from 8,494, adding that this number may come down after the IEC decision.

Another well-placed source on the condition of anonymity told Pajhwok Afghan News that 1,709 polling stations identified by the Independent Electoral Complaint Commission (IECC), were included in 8,494 polling stations which will go for audit and recount.

The source added this number is not finalized by the Commission and it may be changed after the final decision of the IEC.

IECC Commissioner Syed Qutbuddin Roydar said that they earlier requested the IEC to audit and recount 2,118 polling stations in 23 provinces.

He said besides these polling stations, more polling stations have been identified by the IEC for audit and recount, therefore, the total number of polling stations that need audit and recount had increased.

Another documents available with Pajhwok showed that 2,100 polling stations in 23 provinces needed recount. On the bases of this document most of the polling stations identified for recount are in the following provinces.

In Baghlan province 372 polling stations, Helmand 317, Ghor 207, Kandahar 189, Nangarhar 186, Khost 179, Kapesa 123, Faryab 104, Kunduz 81 and Paktia province 73 polling stations.

In addition, 66 polling stations in Zabul, 44 in Parwan, 35 in Nimroz, 30 in Farah, 26 in Paktia, 22 in Logar, 22 in Nuristan, 17 in Takhar, nine in Sar-i-Pul, seven in Uruzgan, four in Samangan, three in Bamyan, and two in Badakhshan province needed recount.

The process of audit and recount could not kick off from the past two days due to opposition from the Stability and Partnership team.

The Stability and Partnership team after a meeting attended by its key members said that four types of fraud votes will never be acceptable for the team.

The IEC has been asked to differentiate and address the issue of four types of fraud votes that included 137,630 unknown votes in invalidated by Dermalog, 102,012 votes polled out of official time, votes polled with repeated photographs that had been declared below standard.

The IEC has recently announced that credible votes are 1,843,107 and more than 86,000 votes had been invalidated due to repeated photographs and polling out of official time.

The announcement of September 28 presidential election result has been delayed due to certain problems the IEC has been faced with.

Azizullah Hamdard

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