ECC Approves the Invalidation of the 525 Polling Sites

Fuente: 
Tolo News
Fecha de publicación: 
30 Abr 2014

On Wednesday evening, the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) confirmed that more than 234,000 votes from the 525 polling sites have been voided. 

Earlier Wednesday, officials of the ECC addressed complaints registered after the release of preliminary results to the media.

Officials of the ECC said that a total of 121 complaints were registered against the preliminary results of the presidential elections, of which nine complaints were broadcasted to the public.

Five out of nine complaints broadcasted today were registered by Abdullah Abdullah's team asking for further details about the votes in northern Kunduz, Baghlan and western Herat provinces.

The remaining three complaints were registered by Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai's team stating that further details must be provided about the invalidated votes from the 525 polling sites.

The last of the nine complaints was registered by Daoud Sultanzoy's team that expressed the same concerns as Ghani and his team: details must be provided about the invalidated votes of the 525 sites.

Independent Election Commission (IEC) officials addressed Ghani and Sultanzoy's concern about the votes from the 525 polling sites stating that these votes were determined invalid because majority did not have a signature from the head of the polling sites.

A member of Abdullah's team, Zulgai Sajad, said the IEC details of the 525 polling sites were not clear.

"The IEC says that votes of 525 sites were invalidated, but it's not clear where these sites are located," Sajad said. "Knowing this will allow us to understand whether we had votes there or not."

Meanwhile, a member of Ghani's team, Mohammad Qasem Halimi, said that they do not understand why votes from 196 sites out of the 525 sites were voided; the IEC needs to answer this.

"We have complaints from about 196 sites of the 525 and the reasons behind this has not been provided; there should be reason," Halimi said.

He said that more than 80 percent of votes from 70 out of 525 sites were counted in favor of particular candidates making these votes questionable.

Abdul Salam, member of Daoud Sultanzoy's team, said that the questionable 525 sites include genuine votes for presidential candidate Sultanzoy; the votes should be reviewed carefully.

"The genuine and fraudulent votes should be differentiated," Salam said. "We did not commit fraud anywhere, so our votes should be separated."

Even though Abdul Rab Rassoul Sayyaf's team has not formally registered any complaints Jamaluddin Badr, member of Sayyaf's team, said that some powerful figures have stuffed boxes in favor of particular candidates, so these votes should be invalidated.

"40,000 votes were casted for one candidate and 400 votes to the remaining candidates; this can't be right, surely there was fraud," he said.

Two members of the ECC, Azizullah Aryafar and Rida Azimi, said that the IEC's strategy in regards to voiding the votes of the 525 sites is not a politically correct strategy, adding that this act is against the election law.

Khaled Orya, head of the judiciary department of the IEC, said that votes from the 525 sites were questionable, because it was lacking an IEC stamp and signatures of observers. The 525 sites belong to various centers across Afghanistan.

"The result sheets that do not have signatures of the site manager and observers and as well as an IEC stamp, do not have validity to the IEC," Orya said.

After today's announcement, the ECC has eight days to investigate, decide and publicize the complaints and send their final verdict to the IEC.

ECC officials will finalize their decision on the nine complaints announced Wednesday by the end of the day.