Afghanistan

Recent elections in Afghanistan have been tampered by fraud. This was reported by the New York Times this morning in a vote that wasn't for the President but for seats in the lower house. Fraud was the cause for these skewed results as officials are still counting ballots into midday Sunday. Over 800,000 potential votes may be thrown out as a result of the tampered voting. President Hamid Karzai was looking for a victory in 130 seats to hold the majority in the Wolesi Jirga, which is the Afghan lower house. Voting fraud has been a problem in the country but with 89% of the votes already counted the disputes should be settled in a timely fashion. A few Western officials have been involved in determining where the fraud occurred and how to count the votes accordingly. According to the article, voters were forced to cast votes at gun point and the Afghan government also had to deal with corrupt election officials. The committee overseeing the electoral process is called The Afghan Independent Election Committee.

Tom Kuebel

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/world/asia/18kabul.html?_r=1&hp