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Recount ordered at 10 percent of Afghan vote sites

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KABUL: A top election official says vote tallies from about 10 percent of Afghanistan‘s polling stations need to be recounted because of possible irregularities in the country‘s Aug. 20 presidential election.

Grant Kippen of the U.N.-backed Electoral Complaints Commission says just over 2,500 polling stations will need to be audited and recounted.

There were about 26,300 polling stations across Afghanistan on election day. The ECC last week ordered Afghanistan‘s Independent Election Commission to audit and recount ballot boxes from stations that had 100 percent turnout or where a candidate received more than 95 percent of the valid votes.

The election was marred by hundreds of complaints of fraud. The ECC has already thrown out ballots from 83 polling stations because of fraud allegations.

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