Afgan election fraud claims

[SPfloppy]

KABUL (AP) — The U.N.-backed commission ordered a re-count Tuesday of ballots where it had found "convincing evidence" of fraud in Afghanistan's presidential election, including polling stations where all votes were cast for a single candidate.

Widespread allegations of ballot-box stuffing and suspicious tallies are threatening the legitimacy of Afghanistan's Aug. 20 vote as the country awaits final results. More than 720 major fraud charges have been lodged with the Electoral Complaints Commission.

A separate Afghan-run body which organized the election has already thrown out votes from 447 stations — about 200,000 ballots — because of fraud.

The complaint commission's announcement Tuesday ordering a re-count of votes at "questionable" polling stations comes with results from nearly three-quarters of stations already released. Incumbent President Hamid Karzai stands just shy of the 50 percent of the vote he needs to avoid a run-off election with his main challenger Abdullah Abdullah.

Western officials say ballots have been submitted from hundreds of fake voting sites, especially across the Afghan south, where Karzai's support is strongest. The election commission has tallied dozens of voting sites where Karzai won neatly rounded blocks of ballots — 200, 300 and 500 votes — results that one Western official labeled "illogical."

The above came from yahoo (I didn't use Fox as a sign of good faith) The rest of the story is on thier main page I can't link it from this computer.

What I am curious about is how they are going to blame us for this. The western friendly candidate (Karzai) seems to be the one being cheeted right now, but if elected I am reasonabily sure that we will be accused of fixing the election. Were Bush still in office I would be 100% sure that we'd be blamed. The biggest problem with purported wrong doing in the Afgan election is that the biggest impact would be to democracy in Afganistan period. People who have never had political voice before (the average Afgan voter) will lose confidence in this process by virtue of any accusation of tampering and be less likely to cast a ballot next time. Then again who in hell are we to cry foul on anyone else's election after our own system was found lacking

[loborugger]

Election fraud in Afghanistan? Really? Say it so.

Western officials say ballots have been submitted from hundreds of fake voting sites, especially across the Afghan south, where Karzai's support is strongest. The election commission has tallied dozens of voting sites where Karzai won neatly rounded blocks of ballots — 200, 300 and 500 votes — results that one Western official labeled "illogical."

Good thing we have hitched our wagon to this pony.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by loborugger

Election fraud in Afghanistan? Really? Say it so.

Western officials say ballots have been submitted from hundreds of fake voting sites, especially across the Afghan south, where Karzai's support is strongest. The election commission has tallied dozens of voting sites where Karzai won neatly rounded blocks of ballots — 200, 300 and 500 votes — results that one Western official labeled "illogical."

Good thing we have hitched our wagon to this pony.

The problem with Afghanistan is, there is nobody in the whole bloody country who would be any different than Karzai. I had a friend who spent some time over there. He still shakes his head when he talks about it. He said it was like stepping back into medieval times. That's how backward the people are.

[loborugger]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

The problem with Afghanistan is, there is nobody in the whole bloody country who would be any different than Karzai. I had a friend who spent some time over there. He still shakes his head when he talks about it. He said it was like stepping back into medieval times. That's how backward the people are.

Oh, I agree. I dont understand why we have hitched our wagon to any of these ponies. What a joke.

[gyldenlove]

One voting station that was closed reported more than 27.000 votes for Karzai and no votes for anyone else despite not a single voter being able to vote.

That regime has 0 legitimacy.

[barryr]

I thought Obama was going to fix it all and bring the troops home, which the liberals cried for? Instead we have more troops going and troops being killed, yet no screams from the liberals and no daily body counts. Hmm, very interesting. As I have stated many times and the proof is there to see, wars are only good according to the liberals when it's being run by democrats. Great, deep thinking they have.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

I had a friend who spent some time over there. He still shakes his head when he talks about it. He said it was like stepping back into medieval times. That's how backward the people are.

For a minute there I thought you were talking about red state America.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by barryr

I thought Obama was going to fix it all....

"Fix" it all?

That would imply that there was some sort of problem.

I thought right-wingnuts like you would have us believe that everything is hunky dory over there, that "freedom is on the march," etc?