Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission on Tuesday ordered a partial recount of the ballots in the August 20 presidential election.
The complaints commission called on Afghanistan's Independent Elections Commission (IEC) to conduct the audit and recount because of "clear and convincing evidence of fraud in a number of polling stations."
Most of that fraud evidence is an "exceptionally high number" of votes cast in a polling station "in relation to the number of ballots available" or an extremely high number of votes cast for only one candidate, according to the ECC.
Therefore, the ECC is ordering an audit and recount of ballots at polling stations where the total number of votes is 600 or more, and represent a voter turnout of 100 percent; and where one candidate received 95 percent or greater of the total valid votes, if the total number of votes exceeds 100.
The ECC has received more than 2,000 complaints since the election, including more than 700 it has deemed "Priority A."
Preliminary election results based on about 92 percent of the polling stations show Afghan President Hamid Karzai has a sizeable lead over his nearest challenger.
The IEC said Tuesday that Karzai has just over 54 percent of the vote, compared to just over 28 percent for his former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah. A presidential candidate needs more than 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.
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