Ballot invalidation process set in motion

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Monday started invalidating bogus votes in the presence of observes and media representatives, as the audit exercise gained momentum, an official said.

Abdul Rahman Hotaki, the IEC deputy chief, told reporters a list of scrutinised polling stations would be posted to the commission website in the next 24 hours. The list will be available 24 hours after its approval.

Earlier, IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said the results of 8,238 ballot boxes had been entered into the system. The findings of the auditing would also be entered into the system in eight phases.

Javed Habibi, the acting secretary, said details of around 9,850 audited ballot boxes had been fed into the system. Of them, the result of 5,810 ballots boxes has already been prepared.

Representative of both teams, meanwhile, termed the entry of results into the system ambiguous. Eng. Asim, a member of Dr. Abdullah’s team, said he was present at the time when officials were entering audited results into the database. But he did not understand the procedure.

Daud Sultanzoy, speaking on behalf of Dr. Ashraf Ghani’s camp, lauded the process but questioned sources of vote categorisation. The number of total ballot boxed to be scrutinised is 22,828.

The scrutiny started on July 17 after the electoral process hit an impasse due to severe differences between the two candidates.

nh/mud