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 25th.

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.