KABUL - The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Friday reported that 14,516 ballot boxes have been audited, adding up to 63 percent of the total that is expected to be reviewed as part of the comprehensive vote audit. Officials said there is a strong chance the vote invalidation process will begin on Monday.
According to the election commission, up to 5,000 checklists have been processed into the database and 500 ballot boxes under special investigation given extra scrutiny.
In a push to move the auditing process forward with greater pace, the IEC has increased the number of working groups to 280 and assigned them two shifts. There is a total of 1,300 observers participating in the audit.
"Finally we reached a decision, the vote invalidation process will possible be started in the presence of observers next week," IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor said.
As has become the norm, the vote auditing process started with a one hour delay on Friday, and an altercation occurred between observers representing the rival candidates. According eyewitnesses, the confrontation, which did not go beyond a verbal one, happened when a number of ballot boxes were discovered with significantly different numbers of votes inside them from what the database had recorded.
Meanwhile, the two campaigns have signed onto a disciplinary agreement with the IEC and the United Nations. The hope is the rule scheme will help prevent any further altercations, violent or not, that would further delay the auditing process.
"There was an agreement between our team, Abdullah Abdullah, IEC and the UN so that we would avoid wasting time, even over the big issues, for more than two hours," said Ashna Gul Bandwal, a member of Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai's team.
Abdullah's side simply expressed the hope that the vote invalidation process would move forward according to plan and would operate more smoothly once the new rules of decorum are put in place.
"What our technical team had agreed upon with the UN and the election commission, we hope that it implemented, the reforms and solidarity team is ready to participate in the vote invalidation process," Abdullah representative Mohammad Zahir Akhbar said.
The move to reign in the behavior of observers at the auditing sites was made after a brawl took place on Tuesday in which knives and scissors were used as weapons, and six people were left injured. The audit process was delayed for three hours as a result. (Tolonews)