Which means it is a fraudulent failure.
"Up to 1 million Afghan votes could be voided" by New York Times | October 18, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Although yesterday’s planned announcement of the preliminary results of parliamentary elections was delayed, interviews with Afghan and Western officials indicate fraud was pervasive and that nearly 25 percent of votes would be thrown out.
The fraud, which included ballot-box stuffing, citizens forced to cast their votes at gunpoint, corrupt election officials, and security forces complicit with corrupt candidates, is expected to mean that up to a million votes will be nullified, according to two Western officials who are following the election....
In other words, it is like any election anywhere.
And they wonder why the people no longer believe in politics?
Afghan and Western observers were worried that the commission was coming under enormous political pressure to change the outcome, especially for a handful of powerful figures.
Why did the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections just zip into my mind?
At stake is the makeup of the lower house of the Afghan Parliament, the only body with the power to question the policies of President Hamid Karzai.
I suppose that would be important to the U.S right now.
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KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghan election officials plan to throw out about 1 million ballots from last month’s parliamentary election — eliminating about 23 percent of the votes because of fraud, a Western official said yesterday.
A fraud-marred presidential election last year nearly derailed international support for President Hamid Karzai, turning this year’s poll into a test of whether the government is committed to changes viewed as key for justifying NATO funding and troops.
Sorry, but NOTHING JUSTIFIES US being there a SINGLE SECOND LONGER!
One of the largest criticisms of the Election Commission last year was that it abandoned its own fraud-detection measures partway through the process, dumping obviously fraudulent ballots into the tally to help Karzai avoid a runoff with his top challenger. It was only after drawn-out investigations that more than a million ballots were thrown out — the majority of them for Karzai.
So the disqualification of a large number of ballots from the Sept. 18 parliamentary vote shows that the commission is sticking to its rules, though it does not necessarily mean Afghans will view the result as fair.
In other words. the Afghan people feel just like us Americans when it comes to politics.
Full preliminary results are expected today after being delayed twice while election officials in the capital combed through messy tallies from 34 provinces....
“The suspicion of Afghans is that it will be uneven and the disqualifications won’t so much affect local power holders or those that are linked to the government,’’ said Martine van Bijlert, the codirector of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a Kabul-based think tank....
The recounts have now been finished, and about 1 million votes have been disqualified, according to the Western official, who was close to the process but spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information had not been formally released....
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"1.3m ballots from Afghan parliamentary vote are voided" by Joshua Partlow, Washington Post | October 21, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s election commission threw out 1.3 million fraudulent votes from last month’s parliamentary elections, about a quarter of all ballots cast and roughly the same amount invalidated in last year’s presidential election, officials said yesterday.
In announcing the preliminary election results, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission said that 5.6 million votes were cast, but only 4.3 million were deemed valid after about a month of investigating the results with audits and recounts.
Those numbers are all messed up if the previous reporting was right.
Commission chairman Fazil Ahmad Manawi said 224 parliamentary candidates, as well as an unspecified number of election officials, have been accused of fraud; their cases will be investigated by a separate complaints commission.
Despite the widespread irregularities, Manawi and other election officials described the election as a success, given that it was held amid a growing Taliban insurgency that made it difficult for many voters to reach the polls.
That is their measure of success, huh? Bar is a little low, ain't it?
Abdullah Ahmadzai, another member of the election commission, said he considered the vote successful because the commission this year had better mechanisms in place to detect fraud....
They had just as much fraud, but they caught it this time.
Nader Khan Katawazai, a Parliament member and candidate from Paktika Province, said he expected the continued high level of fraud to ensure that the rich and powerful prevailed at the ballot.
That is the WAY IT WORKS EVERYWHERE!
Mir Ahmad Joyenda, a Parliament member from Kabul, said that because the parliamentary elections were a lower priority for foreigners than last year’s presidential vote, there was less scrutiny of the process.
And a lot less coverage!
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Also see: Counting the Afghan Vote
Afghan Election Results
