Votes cast at 9 Wardak sites quarantined

MAIDAN SHAHR (Pajhwok): Ballots cast at nine polling centres have been quarantined in central Maidan Wardak province, where votes of 34 boxes were recounted, an official said on Thursday.

Independent Election Commission chief in Wardak Noorullah Paigham told Pajhwok the ballots had been quarantined as requested by the Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC).

He said the IEC had not directly ordered the audit into votes cast as the nine centres, saying the ballots would either be thrown out or declared valid after their investigation was completed. He said the IEC had so far declared no one as invalid in Wardak.

IECC deputy chief in Wardak Hayatullah Hamid said the ballots being investigated belonged to seven polling centres in Behsud district and two in Syedabad district.

He said they had so far audited 162 ballot boxes and recounted votes of 36 others.

He said they had registered 39 complaints and divided them into four categories and six of the complaints had been dispatched to Kabul and the rest remained with them for investigation.

Some provincial council members allege widespread fraud had been committed during the April 5 elections in Wardak.

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