Originally published by the Voice of America (www.voanews.com).
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September 7, 2009

Report: Fake Vote Sites Boosted Karzai in Afghan Election
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http://enews.voanews.com/t?ctl=2673D5B:A6F02AD83191E16045CF21CB3FAA2C1221A4E82C900CD027&
 
Unnamed Afghan and Western officials say Hamid Karzai's supporters
created as many as 800 fake polling stations that produced hundreds of
thousands of fraudulent votes 
A report in a major U.S. newspaper outlines allegations of massive
voting fraud committed to help Afghan President Hamid Karzai win
re-election. An Afghan man walks in front of a billboard with a photo of
Afghanistan's president Hamid Karzai in Kabul, 06 Sep 2009The New York
Times Monday quotes unnamed Afghan and Western officials saying Mr.
Karzai's supporters created as many as 800 fake polling stations that
produced hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes. The newspaper says
the votes counted for Mr. Karzai at some polling stations may be 10
times higher than the number of people who actually voted. Meanwhile,
the Karzai campaign has accused other candidates of manipulating votes.
Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission says votes from nearly 500
polling stations across the country have been invalidated due to
allegations of widespread fraud. The commission also says it will have
to clear 650 serious complaints before the results of the voting can be
certified this month.

Partial election results show Mr. Karzai has 48.6 percent of the vote,
while his main challenger Abdullah Abdullah has 31.7 percent. The count
is based on returns from about 75 percent of the country's polling
sites. A candidate needs to win more than 50 percent of the vote to
avoid a run-off. Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission has
received more than 2,000 allegations of fraud or abuse from the August
20 presidential election. It says that some of the complaints, if true,
would affect the final result. Once there is a clear winner,
international leaders are expected to convene a United Nations
conference to discuss Afghanistan's future. A formal call for such a
meeting has now been made by Britain, France and Germany. Some
information for this report was provided by AFP.


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