IECC suggests ‘special audit’ for some of 300,000 disputed votes

KABUL (TOLO News): The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) on Wednesday said that a tiny percentage of the 300,000 disputed votes will undergo a special audit.

The 300,000 disputed votes are from over 8,400 polling stations.

Previously, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) invalidated approximately 86,000 votes of the 300,000 disputed votes, and also invalidated votes from 2,000 out of 2423 polling stations that had discrepancies or other issues with the corresponding biometric data, or which came from polling stations without working biometric devices on polling day.

From the total of 300,000 disputed votes, 102,000 votes–according to some campaign teams–were cast either before or after the legal hours for voting on election day.

Today’s decisions by the IECC:

According to the IECC’s decision, 10 percent of the 137,000 suspicious votes will go through a special audit.

The IECC also decided to examine 15 percent of the 102,000 votes, which, according to timestamps from devices, campaign teams say were cast either before or after the legal hours for voting on election day.

“Those polling stations that belong to the 137,000 votes will go for a special audit to determine whether they have biometric data or not…to find out whether they have credible result sheets or not,” said Mohammad Qasim Elyasi, a spokesman for the IECC.

“To certify or reject is very easy–the election commission (IEC) had approved it, it was easy for us too to approve it or reject it, but we did not do so, because we want to maintain electoral justice,” said Zuhra Bayan Shinwari, the head of the IECC.

What is the special audit?

• Based on the IECC’s final decision, the commission will undertake a special audit of the 309 polling stations that yielded the 137,000 votes. If 65 percent of 309 polling stations complete the accepted criteria, then the IECC will recognize the total 137,000 votes as credible, but if these polling stations do not meet 35 percent of the IECC’s criteria, then all 137,000 votes will go for special audit.

Based on the IECC’s decision, the commission will also undertake the special audit of 1103 polling stations that yielded 102,000 votes that were allegedly cast either before or after the legal hours for voting on election day. If the special audit completed meets 65 percent of the IECC’s criteria, then the total 102,000 votes will be recognized as credible votes.