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200,000 Afghanistan ballots rejected due to fraud
Around 200,000 ballots in Afghanistan troubled presidential election have been rejected because of fraud, officials revealed today as the UN called for further measures to counter widespread vote-rigging in the poll.
The Independent Electoral Commission previously said that results from 447 polling stations had been thrown out. That amounts to about 200,000 votes, it said today.
Daoud Ali Najafi, the commission's chief electoral officer, explained: "The numbers were suspicious and the results did not match with the reconciliation form [used to double-check results]".
He added: "In some areas the turnout was higher than the number of ballots we sent to the polling station."
The suspect ballots have been sent to the UN-backed fraud investigation commission, which will decide if any of them can eventually be included in the official count.
As doubts mount about the legitimacy of the poll, the UN's chief representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, called on Afghan election officials to exclude all ballots from the vote count that have "evidence of irregularities".