Afghanistan”s electoral officials searched for a way Monday to salvage an election marred by reports of ballot stuffing and phantom voters, mulling how much of the vote to throw out because of fraud.
Repeated delays in announcing full results from the Aug. 20 presidential vote, along with mounting evidence of fraud, have raised fears of new political instability in Afghanistan at a time of rising Taliban violence and an increased U.S. military presence.
An election complaints commission supported by the U.N. has said it found “clear and convincing” evidence of fraud in several areas and ordered about 2 percent of the ballots quarantined. The big question now is if the cheating was large-scale enough to overturn President Hamid Karzai”s lead in the count so far.
The Afghan-run Independent Election Commission was meeting Monday morning and would to make an announcement later, spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said. The commission had been expected to say when it would announce long-delayed full preliminary results, but later it issued a brief statement saying only that there would be no further reporting of vote counts Monday.
