Afghan Elections

October 12, 2009  
Filed under News

Elections for the Afghan president were held on August 20^th. Although the government in Afghanistan is supported by the American government, the elections were marred by widespread ballot stuffing and other voter fraud.

Several precincts had close to 100% of the population voting. A few even had over 100%, a sure sign of fraud. Leading up to the election many Afghan residents reported being sold voting cards, in order to secure more votes for their candidates.

While there were precincts that had all of their population vote, over most of the country there was a very low voter turnout. A review by the International Election Commission reported that there may have been as few as 30% of the population at the polls on Election Day.

Security was also an issue. Many remote voting centers were guarded by Taliban and citizens reported being asked who they were voting for and then turned away by security if they chose certain candidates. Others said that they came to the voting stations and the ballot boxes were already full and locked.

The uncertified final tally shows incumbent Hamid Karzai winning the election in with 54.6% of the vote. Although the results are almost certain to be final, the IEC has received over 2,600 individual complaints with the election process in general, and over 700 have been recognized as serious enough to have changed the outcome of the election.

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Schuyler Foulke

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