The Afghan vote has been marred by low turnout and widespread allegations of fraud
All presidential ballots in five polling stations in Paktika were invalidated
Hamid Karzai the leading candidate for President.He is incumbent.
Cheated: Afghanistan's Abdullah Abdullah, main challenger to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, is watching his polling results being eroded by fraud day by day.
An Afghan woman stands at a polling station in Jalalabad the provincial capital of Nangarhar province east of Kabul, Afghanistan.
All presidential ballots in five polling stations in Paktika were invalidated
An Afghan National Army soldier stands guard in Kabul, as Afghanistan voted under the shadow of Taliban threats of violence to choose its next president.
A man and a donkey loaded with election supplies head to a rural polling station in Sighawar, in mountainous Panjshir Province.
Presidential candidate and current President Hamid Karzai casts his vote at a polling station in Kabul.
Afghan election commission worker counts paper ballots at a polling station in Kandahar.
Election worker carries a ballot box at an election commission office in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.
An Afghan security officer checks the engine of a car at a check post in city of Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanista
An Afghan soldier gestures to drivers at a check post in city of Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan on Wednesday.
The U.N.-backed commission investigating fraud in Afghanistan's election has issued its first orders to completely exclude some ballots from the final tally.
A statement issued Thursday says all ballots from five polling stations in Paktika province should be voided because they show clear evidence of fraud. This is a more severe step than ordering a recount, in which the votes could eventually be included.
The group is releasing results from each province as investigations finish.
The Electoral Complaints Commission previously ordered an audit and recount countrywide of stations where turnout was at or above 100 percent, or where one candidate won more than 95 percent of the vote.
The Aug. 20 poll has been increasingly marred by reports of ballot-box stuffing and suspicious tallies. A U.S. monitoring group has said "large numbers of polling stations" had more than 100 percent turnout and President Hamid Karzai's top challenger has accused him of "state-engineered" fraud.
All ballots from five polling stations in Paktika province should be voided because they show clear evidence of fraud, the Electoral Complaints Commission said in a statement. This is a more severe step than ordering a recount, in which the votes could eventually be included.
Decisions by the commission are final under Afghanistan's electoral law. The group is releasing decisions from each province as investigations finish.
The group previously ordered an audit and recount countrywide of stations where turnout was at or above 100 percent, or where one candidate won more than 95 percent of the vote.
The Independent Election Committee has tossed out ballots from 447 polling stations because of fraud suspicions, but lead challenger to President Hamid Karzai, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, says that isn't enough to erase tainting in the Aug. 20 vote. With 73 percent of ballots counted, Karzai has 48.6 percent of the vote. He needs 50 percent to avoid a runoff, and he's darn close.
Accusation by Main rival Dr Abdullah
Mr Karzai’s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has accused him of foisting a 'state-engineered fraud' on the country, and warned that the patience of the disenfranchised was wearing thin in a country full of guns and already weakened by a determined Taleban insurgency.
The IEC announced that it had delayed the release of preliminary results — expected to show an outright win for Mr Karzai without the need for a run-off vote — but gave no explanation why. It also said that ballots had been thrown out from 447 polling stations because they were suspected of being tainted by fraud, estimating that 200,000 votes could be annulled. So far, almost 4,300,000 votes have been counted.
But Dr Abdullah, the leading opposition candidate, said the scale of the fraud was even greater than the IEC was acknowledging. He accused the IEC — in charge of organizing the polls and counting the votes — of being partial to Mr Karzai and stacked with his cronies.Dr Abdullah demanded that the commission stop releasing even partial results, saying that those already issued were deeply flawed, sometimes reflecting a turnout of 200 per cent, or alternatively a 100 per cent vote for Mr Karzai where no other candidates received a single ballot."-------------
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