Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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September 15, 2009

Afghan ECC Orders Recount at 10 Percent of Voting Sites
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=26993C5:A6F02AD83191E1600DECC019B726B8FB2A201403E89ED254&
 
Electoral Complaints Commission chairman says officials will need to
audit and recount votes at about 2,500 polling sites 
Workers count ballots at the Independent Election Commission in Kabul,
Afghanistan, 27 Aug 2009A top election official in Afghanistan says
votes from 10 percent of
the country's polling stations must be recounted due to indications of
fraud in last month's presidential election. The chairman of
Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission, Grant Kippen, said
Tuesday officials will need to audit and recount votes at about 2,500
polling sites. The U.N.-backed ECC has already ordered thousands
of votes thrown out from 83 polling stations due to "clear and
convincing evidence of fraud." In other election-related news,
a senior U.S. official at the United Nations mission in Afghanistan has
left the country after a disagreement with his boss about how to
respond to the massive allegations of vote fraud. U.N. officials
announced Tuesday that Peter Galbraith, the deputy special U.N.
representative for Afghanistan, left Kabul within the past two days
after an argument with his Norwegian boss, Kai Eide. U.N.
officials say they expect Galbraith to return soon. They did not
provide details about the disagreement that prompted him to leave. Last
week, the U.N.-backed ECC ordered Afghanistan's Independent Election
Commission to recount ballot boxes from stations with 100 percent
turnout, or sites where a candidate received more than 95 percent of
the valid votes. And Afghanistan's Independent Election
Commission announced last week that President Hamid Karzai has more
than the 50 percent of the votes needed to avoid a runoff, with nearly
all of the votes tallied. His main challenger, former Foreign Minister
Abdullah Abdullah, has 28 percent of the vote. Dr. Abdullah
and other candidates are disputing the results, which will not be final
until the ECC finishes its investigation into the allegations of
widespread fraud. Some information for this report was provided by AFP
and AP.


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