Democracy International issued the following press release today:

Kabul, Afghanistan – At 5PM today, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) released the long anticipated decision resulting from the audit of  polling stations that met the criteria of its September 8, 2009, audit and recount order.

Democracy International has analysed the results from data previously released and believes  the ECC audit decisions should result in a runoff election, according to Afghanistan’s Electoral Law. Our calculations suggest the percentage rejection of the ballots cast in each of the audit categories will reduce  President Hamid Karzai’s level of support to approximately 48.29% of the overall vote. This reduces his vote share below the 50% threshold necessary for a first-round victory, and should necessitate a runoff election between Hamid Karzai, and the second-place candidate, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.  The IEC has a responsibility to certify the results based on the ECC’s decisions.

In addition, the ECC has decided to invalidate 210 polling stations based on Priority A complaints, 147 of which are included in the IEC’s published preliminary result.

Based on DI’s analysis of the preliminary results and understanding of the ECC’s audit process, we believe the combined impact of these decisions is:

Note: Some percentages may not add precisely to 100.00% because of rounding to two decimal places.

The ECC has now given a decision on the audit process, the results of which appear to require a run-off election to be held. The IEC should now review the operational requirements to hold that election and set a date for the earliest possible polling.

As an audit of a sample of suspicious polling stations continues, the prospect of a runoff election is still unclear

The ECC and IEC are currently conducting an audit of a sample of the ballot boxes which meet the criteria defined in the September 8 ECC audit order. 3,498 polling stations meet the audit criteria, but they have decided only to audit a sample of these – roughly ten percent. They’ve separated the ballot boxes into six categories and are auditing a total of 358 ballot boxes.

Six audit teams are responsible for conducting the entire audit. Each team is composed of three members – an IEC team leader, an IEC team member, and a team member from UNDP elect. All audits are conducted at an audit center in Kabul which is supervised jointly by a team which consists of IEC, ECC, and UNDP-Elect staff.  Candidate agents and observers do have access to the audit center, although the results of individual audits are not being released, as they are considered part of an ongoing investigation.

To conduct an audit, the audit team uses a checklist which covers four main stages: a visual inspection of the ballot box, opening of the ballot box to discover if tampering occurred, whether the box contains the necessary materials, and whether or not the actual contents display signs of fraud. Such physical indicators of fraud include unfolded ballots, identical markings or significant patterns of markings, or discrepancies between the total ballots bundled and the total votes recorded on the results form.

If clear and convincing evidence of fraud is found for a particular polling station, all the results from that station will be invalidated. The ECC will then calculate a percentage of fraud for each of the six categories based on the results of the sample audit. These percentages will then be multiplied by the remaining votes not included in the 358 ballot box sample for each candidate in the respective categories. So, for example, if the ECC invalidates 55% of ballots from category A1 of the sample, it will then invalidate 55% of the ballots in that category for each candidate from the polling stations that were not sampled.

There are a number of methodological problems with this approach, but it was chosen to allow the IEC and ECC to conduct the audit relatively quickly. Once the audit process is complete and the new vote totals have been calculated, a final certified result will be announced. It’s important to understand that other ECC investigations are still ongoing and it’s unclear what effect these investigations will have on the outcome.

At this stage, it is still unclear whether a runoff election will be necessary. If the audit process produces a final certified result in which President Karzai has won less than fifty percent of the ballots being counted, a runoff should occur. The audit process is likely to be completed within the next few days and a final certified result could be announced as early as 15 October.

The following is a contribution from James Long, from the University of California San Diego, and a Democracy International observer.

Now that voting has finished, what is the next step in the process to count votes?

Ballots of president and provincial councils were counted fairly quickly at each polling station. Tallies and ballots were then transferred to provincial capitals, before the tallies are forwarded onto the Independent Elections Commission (IEC) headquarters in Kabul for the count and final certification. Over the past two days, Democracy International (DI)  has observed this tally process. The IEC plans to begin to release the first results on August 25^th.

What did you observe at the tally center?

The tally center is open to international observers and media, although the first day we visited we were the only monitors there and on the second day, we only saw a couple other observers. We observed boxes of polling station final vote tallies being received and opened by IEC officials. Party agents monitor at this stage, and we saw party agents and the IEC record which envelopes of final tallies were in the boxes being opened. An agent from the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) reported that one box from Kunar Province had been “quarantined” today and set aside for further examination, but he would not say what was wrong with the box or how it was received.

What happens after the tallies are received?

A first team of about 35 (at our count) data clerks enter the tallies into the computer, a process we could view. A second team of clerks will perform a “double-blind” entry, where they enter the same vote totals as team one, but are unable to see how the data has already been entered. If no discrepancies occur in that process, the data is recorded. If a difference exists between the two codings an IEC official goes back to the original tally form to reconcile the problem.

What were your impressions of the data entry?

The IEC allows observers to watch this process from a platform away from the data clerks. From what we could see, things were calm and running smoothly and professionally. But because only IEC officials are allowed on the floor near the clerks and computers, it is impossible to directly observe data entry.

But there is already a backlog in the number of tally sheets that have been received at the center but not entered into the computer tally. So while the count process is generally slow in Afghanistan given the geographic and security challenges of receiving votes from provinces back to headquarters, the entering of data is incurring significant delays in Kabul. The tally center is not open around the clock and could probably use additional data entry clerks. The size and design of the ballot also makes coding difficult. We timed one clerk who took 28 minutes to enter the presidential and provincial results from one polling center.

Did you learn of any other challenges or delays?

We were told by another international observer that about half of the total ballots had been received as of last night (Monday), with about half of the provinces remaining. The IEC has received the tallies from Kabul, but is apparently waiting to begin processing them and instead focus on other provinces. We were told that once tallies are received in Kabul, they can be recorded in three days.

Eric Bjornlund is a co-founder and principal of U.S.-based Democracy International, and the author of”Beyond Free and Fair: Monitoring Elections and Building Democracy.” Here are his thoughts about the legitimacy of the Afghan elections.

International observers, journalists, diplomats, academics, and others often talk about whether elections are “free and fair.” This focus on the free and fair determination has encouraged international election observers to make categorical, bottom-line judgments and suggest that elections either pass or fail a test of legitimacy. Thus, today and tomorrow, international election observers will issue statements and hold press conferences that, implicitly or explicitly, offer preliminary verdicts on whether the Afghan public and the international community should view these elections as legitimate.

But the standards for a legitimate election in the context of Afghanistan are in controversy. Assessing whether the August 20 election has met such standards starts to seem extremely subjective. Is this election successful merely because it happened, because those who wanted to seriously disrupt it appear to have failed? How can we judge an election in the context of war? If observers emphasize administrative irregularities, such as problems with the indelible ink and punching of ballots that are supposed to be checks on multiple voting, then perhaps we are approaching the kinds of problems we see in normal elections.

Moreover, the election process is ongoing. The IEC is still engaged in vote count tabulation. No results have been announced. Candidates and citizens need to bring any complaints they may have to the Election Complaints Commission. Accordingly, election observers cannot really make any judgments about the process at this point, partly because they still need to collect information but more importantly because the process is still ongoing. Judgments about election day must go beyond the conduct of polling. We need to try to avoid the instinct to provide snap judgments. Accordingly, while DI will also offer a preliminary statement sharing our findings to date, our team will continue to monitor the process as it unfolds over the coming days and weeks.

Election observers and the international community more generally also need to move “beyond free and fair” in another sense. These elections are intended as part of a broader process of democratization in Afghanistan. They were the first elections administered by an Afghan-led institution. Domestic election monitors were active. There appeared to be a competitive political debate. Perhaps these elections will have been successful if they have contributed to the long-term development of organizations, institutions, and democratic processes in Afghanistan. It will be some time before we can judge whether that has really happened.

The fourth in a series of videos from Democracy Internationals Election Observation Mission to Afghanistan. These videos provide a window into Democracy Internationals observation mission, and focus on the election itself, the security situation, the role of election observers, the media, the participation of women, and the results of the election. In this video, one of DI’s Long-Term Observers takes a trip to Panjsher province and reports on election preparations. These videos are produced by the Democracy International Afghanistan media team. For more information, please visit www.democracyinternational.com/afghanistan, follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/DemocracyIntl, or email us at press@democracyinternational.com.