TEFA lists problems voters faced during election

KABUL (TEFA) on Saturday listed issues voters faced during the presidential election.

The organization said the issues it noticed were missing names of voters from voter lists, non-functional biometric devices, employment of underage workers, usage of erasable election ink and mandatory photo capture of women.

The watchdog also shared its findings with media persons about the election process from 9:30am until 4:30pm through its 5,200 domestic observers.

A statement from TEFA received by Pajhwok Afghan News said that the main office of TEFA had been able to be in contact with its observers in all 34 provinces of the country for reports about the election process.

The watchdog said the election process faced some serious problems and the major problem was mismatching names on voter lists, rejection of voters by biometric devices particularly those who had cast their votes in Wolesi Jirga polls, presence of wrong voter lists in polling sites, missing some of voter names from the lists and even absence of entire voter lists in some polling sites.

Biometric devices rejection of voters was because of presence of the voter’s data from the Wolesi Jirga election, the source said.

TEFA said low turnout of people in all provinces of the country from the morning until the end of the voting was another issue despite somehow stable security environment.

Biometric devices in eight provinces of the country faced serious failures as some of the devices ran out of charge and power banks also failed to recharge them, it said.

The source said biometric devices at 109 polling sites printed the lists of male voters instead of female voters and vice versa, while the devices in 73 sites stopped functioning after 11am or 12pm and additional devices could not meet the needs of all the sites.

It said election workers in 24 percent of polling sites, observed by TEFA, were inexperienced to use biometric devices.

Underage election workers were employed in 18 percent of polling stations in Jawzjan, Khost, Paktia, Ghor, Farah, Nimroz and Zabul provinces, it said.

The watchdog criticized the absence of enough election materials in some polling stations. Citing an example, it said, 3,000 registered voters were provided with only 200 ballot papers in Malistan district of Ghazni.

In a polling station in Kabul, 1,340 ballot papers were available for 3,500 voters registered in the area.

Taking female voters’ photos in some of women’s polling stations was not mandatory and women could vote without their facial record while female voters in some polling stations did not allow their photos to be captured, therefore they left polling sites without casting their votes.

In some provinces including Kabul, Ghazni, Ghor and Sar-i-Pul, the indelible ink on voters’ finger was erasable.

TEFA said that the security situation in the capital of Maidan Wardak province worsened after several rockets landed in the city.

Security incidents increased over the day as a suicide bomber killed by his own explosives in Kunduz province and Taliban fired several missiles into Kork Ozbakia area of Sar-i-Pul province.

A child was killed after Taliban opened fire at a polling site in Paktika province as well as attacks happened in Helmand, Kandahar and Kabul provinces, TEFA added.

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