KABUL (Pajhwok): The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has failed to determine the exact number of voters who participated in the presidential election during a period of month
Earlier the IEC had given October 19 the date for announcement of preliminary result while November 7 for final result of the Sept 28 presidential election.
But due to some technical issues and problems during separation of clean and fraudulent votes, the IEC could not announce the result on its due date.
This comes as exact number of voters who participated in the election is yet to be verified and the IEC has been providing different figures since the Election Day.
Difference by hundreds of thousand votes
Two days after the election, the IEC estimated the number of voters at 2,695,890 according to data it collected from provincial offices.
Maulana Abdullah, a commissioner of IEC, on Saturday in a Facebook post said that 700,000 to 900,000 votes would be invalidated based on the Electoral Law and rules.
Zabihullah Sadat, acting IEC spokesman, said around 1,932,000 biometric votes had been entered into the commission’s server for processing and verification.
He said the exact number of voters would be determined after the cleaning of repeated votes, votes cast with fake photos or duplicate finger prints as well as votes cast before or after official time on the Election Day.
Sadat said the number of voters would be announced based on clean biometric votes. The cleaning process would continue until next Thursday of this week and the commission would announce the exact number of voters to the public, he added.
He acknowledged the IEC had to announce the number of voters within 48 hours, but said it was not possible due to telecommunication problems in provinces.
Some candidates discontent with voter numbers
A number of election tickets say the number of biometric votes was lower compared to figures announced by the IEC while the ticket of President Ashraf Ghani believes the opposite.
Noor RahmanAkhlaqi, a member of Dr. Abdullah Abdullah’s ticket, on Saturday in a Facebook post said, “The IEC’s figures about the number of voters is different compared to that announced by Dermalog website, the commission two days ago said that the number of voters was 1,932,000 but today it said that the number was 1,929,333 votes.”
He said the real number of voters who participated in the election was 1,791,703 published by Dermalog website and shared with all candidates.
“The difference between false and real number of voters is 137,630, but it would still not affect the result, we will stand against fraud,” he added.
ArifKaihani, spokesman of presidential candidateRahmatullah Nabil, also said that the data announced by the IEC had huge difference with the figures provided by Dermalog.
He said according to their team’s information, the real number of voters was 1,791,703.
Mohammad Fahim, spokesman of FaramarzTamanna, another presidential candidate, said that information they had obtained from relevant electoral sources showed that the real number of voters was 1,791,703.
He said they had shared the issue of different figures with the IEC and had asked for a convincing response.
On the other hand, AjmalHodman, a member of Ghani’s team, said that the figures announced about the number of voters by IEC were not acceptable to them.
He said the number of voters was higher compared to figures provided by the IEC and the votes of missing biometric devices should also be counted.
He said 199 biometric devices and 497 SD cards of the devices had been lost. “This is the responsibility of the IEC to keep biometric devices and respect the public vote”, he concluded.
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