Today, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) issued a number of decisions concerning investigations conducted on polling stations in Ghazni, Paktika, and Kandahar provinces. In total, the ECC invalidated the results for 86 polling stations, 78 for the Presidential poll and 8 for the Provincial Council poll.

Of the polling stations affected by today’s ECC decisions, only two have been tallied and included in the IEC’s preliminary results. 447 ballots were cast in the two polling stations in Ghazni province, all in favor of President Karzai. As a result, President Karzai’s vote total will decrease by at least 447 votes.

In Kandahar, the ECC ruled that the results from 51 polling stations should be invalidated and that a full recount and audit should be conducted in Shorabak, Spin Boldak, and Khakrez districts for both the Presidential and Provincial Council elections.

In one case in Ghazni province, the ECC was informed that counting took place at the provincial warehouse in Ghazni instead of at the polling station. This prompted the ECC to initiate an investigation in which they randomly selected nine ballot boxes from Zanakhan district. Upon examination of the random sample, the ECC found clear and convincing evidence of fraud. At one randomly selected polling station, 347 of 350 ballots were cast in favor of President Karzai with repetitive markings and with a list of voters which included fraudulent registration numbers.

In all three provinces, the ECC cited a number of criteria for invalidating votes from particular polling stations, such as identical markings or a clear pattern in the markings on ballots, uncreased ballots – indicating that the ballots had not been inserted through the top slot of the ballot box, ballots bundled and cast solely for one candidate, and missing reconciliation materials such as unused ballots and stubs from used ballots. The ECC also invalidated results from polling stations which reported zero invalid votes.