Afghan vote audit halted again

Afghanistan's election commission yesterday once again suspended the auditing process of 8.1 million votes cast in the presidential run-off poll, after the two candidates failed to agree on the procedure for invalidating fraudulent votes.
"The Independent Election Commission (IEC) has decided to suspend temporarily the vote audit until the fourth day of Eid, and we hope it is enough time for the candidates to sort out their differences," the IEC chairman Ahmad Yusuf Nuristani told a press conference yesterday.
Yesterday's suspension came shortly after the United Nations said that both candidates had indicated they support a UN proposal with specific criteria for invalidating fraudulent ballots in the audit process.
The procedure for dealing with fraud is the primary point of contention between the two sides, but they also disagree on other technical aspects of the process.