Introduction

The uncertainty surrounding the election results is no doubt one of the major challenges effectively undermining the integrity of the election in Afghanistan.

The various EMBs in that country have tried to overcome these challenges by adjusting the election results management system during the ten years since multi-party election was introduced in 2004.[1] Given the various results systems used, Afghanistan is an interesting case, as it has proactively tried to adjust and tackle results management challenges.

The overriding objective of Afghanistan’s election results system has always been to ensure a timely, correct and transparent system. The variables and challenges shaping the results system are common to a number of other transitional societies, while others are more unique. The more common factors are a rudimentary infrastructure, poor telecommunication system, and low literacy and numeracy levels. The more unusual challenges are the severe security conditions under which elections are organized. Furthermore, the cultural barriers to women participation as election officials, part representatives, domestic observers or even voters further complicates the implementation of a results system across the country covering both male and female polling stations.

It is worth noting that a widespread fraud problem has further undermined Afghan stakeholders’ confidence in the IEC as a professional and independent EMB in general, and the results system in particular as over 20% of the ballots were deemed fraudulent in both 2009 and 2010 elections.[2] 

Description of current results management system

Once polling stations are closed and polling is over, the counting of ballot papers will immediately commence in the very same polling station where ballots were cast. These procedures are spelled out in a comprehensive and yet user-friendly manual outlining the individual steps poll workers must perform in order to complete the count.[3] This also holds true when deciding if a ballot paper is valid, or not. Several useful examples are included to facilitate the implementation of the “intention-of-the-voter-is-clear” principle governing this process.

The process is following best international practise enabling observers and party agents clear access to the counting process, including when presiding officers decide whether a ballot paper is deemed valid, or not. They are also requested to sign the actual results form and invited to note the numbers of the ballot box’s security seals and serial number on tamper evident bag (TEB) used to transport the sensitive election material, including ballot papers and results form, among other things.

Before the results forms are inserted into the tamper evident bag, the Polling Centre Manager is supposed to review the form to ensure these are filled out correctly and completely. The sensitive material is then picked up by the District Field Coordinators who are temporary workers of the IEC and employed during election year to assist with planning and implementing all election-related activities within his/her district of responsibility. In some instances the sensitive material will only be picked up the following day, as counting will only commence the day after election. In a number of districts of Afghanistan, no transportation was deemed secure enough after dark and subsequently ballot boxes and tamper evident bags only moved in a convoy the following day to the provincial centre, often with a significant security presence. Given the poor infrastructure and vast distances the retrieval plan envisaged several days for some material to arrive at the provincial capital.

At the provincial centres, the IEC and its UNDP support program have developed and introduced a web-based retrieval management system. This new system enhanced and facilitated IEC HQ’s ability to track the retrieval of ballot boxes and results forms from the polling stations. As soon as convoy arrived with materials from the polling centres within the DFC’s area of responsibility, the provincial intake team logged the identifiers of the polling centre and the number of results forms retrieved from the centre in question.^[4]However, IEC officials at the provincial level do not open the tamper evident bag holding the actual results forms. This TEB is transported to National Tally Centre in Kabul, while the ballot box with other sensitive material remains behind at the provincial centre.

The IEC had learned important lessons from the 2009 election results process and therefore made drastic changes to the tabulation and aggregation of results process in Kabul leading up to the 2010 election.

Once TEBs arrived at the National Tally Centre, they were processed to following way:

1. Intake – IEC staff members checked the handover form’s details against the TEBs serial number and seals on the transport boxes to the ones logged via the provincial web-based entry. 
2. Data Entry Batching – TEBs were inspected for physical tampering followed by scrutiny of the results forms to ensure these were complete and filled out correctly. 
3. Entering Results – Based on the results forms, data-entry clerks entered the results using software containing fundamental mathematical validation of the results entered. If mathematically inconsistent, the software wouldn’t accept the figures entered by the clerk. This reduced human error rates. Ina addition, to avoid manipulation by data-entry clerks result forms were entered twice by two different data-entry clerks thereby significantly reducing the risk of fraud at this stage of the results process.    
4. Once the forms were cleared and approved by the IEC Board of Commissioners, they were scanned and made available to the public on the IEC’s website thereby enable observers and party agents to cross-reference results data obtained at polling stations with the official final results. 
5. Interim results were released throughout the process based on cleared results forms and not based on interim results reported from polling stations using a secondary communications channel, which is often the case in many countries.  

Use of ICT

The IEC has been especially prone to introduce ICT-solutions in areas often ignored by many EMBs, such as deployment and retrieval of sensitive election-results related material and tracking of polling station results forms. The Commission also implemented a reporting system for Election Day to facilitate data-transfer to its Headquarters to be used by the IEC during its press conferences primarily on Election Day. However, no interim results system was used and with the tabulation and aggregation process highly centralized to the national Tally Centre in Kabul the results management system was subsequently expected to be slow. In the end, it took the IEC more than a month to release most of the results.[5]   

Tracking of sensitive election results material using technology

In 2010, the IEC bar-coded the ballot papers packs, as well as tamper-evident bags, using barcode readers. This information was stored in a database enabling the IEC to track these materials from its headquarters down to polling centre level. As a result, the Commission would be able to identify ballot papers emerging from polling stations other than originally allocated to.

In addition to tracking sensitive material, the IEC also utilized a tracking system for a significant number of the convoys deploying the materials as well using mobile phones and satellite equipment to provincial centres. However, the system had significantly less coverage outside provincial capitals when the material was delivered to District Field Coordinators for onward distribution to polling centres.

Results reporting and tracking system   

The TEBs arriving with the results forms from polling stations to the provincial centres were logged into a web-based system, which was connected to the National Tally Centre in Kabul. The database contained the serial numbers of TEBs, polling centre codes and the number of polling stations. As the TEBs were not opened at this stage no results data was extracted. The main purpose of the database was instead to track the retrieval of results forms from the polling stations and to reduce the risk of manipulation of results during transportation of material by tracking the serial numbers of the TEBs holding results forms. However, in spite of the new system the IEC failed to notice that 511 polling stations had not been accounted for more than five weeks since Election Day.[6]   

Although the IEC established a system for polling centre reporting on Election Day, the focus was not results, but how many polling stations opened, security incidents and turnout at mid-day and at closing. As no results were communicated from the polling stations to a higher administrative level within the IEC following the end of the count, no interim result system was used in Afghanistan during the 2010 election. Instead, released results were based on legal results forms that were checked and cleared by the IEC’s Board of Commissioners.

Reporting opening and closing times of polling stations, as well as turnout numbers at noon and at close of polls, is an effective way for the election authority to control the information flow on Election Day. Several other EMBs are availing themselves of the very same strategy, which is widely regarded as an appropriate approach and thereby often recommended by technical assistance service providers.

The newly introduced reporting system from polling stations gave the IEC headquarters a good overview of the number of polling centres and polling stations opened in the morning (and reasons if not open).^[7] The system was, as mentioned above, also designed to generate turnout numbers at noon and at the close of polling.

Polling Centre Managers phoned in the requested data to DFCs, who conveyed the same information to their respective Provincial Office for data-entry into the web-based software. Unfortunately, the system had some shortcomings. Based on this reporting system, the IEC initially announced a voter turnout of 4,265,354. A month later, when publishing interim results, the turnout had jumped to 5.6 million voters representing a discrepancy of more than 30%.^[8] The possible reasons for this discrepancy are numerous, as the reporting system itself had weaknesses that made errors more likely.

Existing strengths in the results management system     

Preparing and holding elections in Afghanistan have proven challenging, given extreme security challenges, socio-economical conditions, as well as cultural barriers effectively preventing women to participate fully as voters, election officials, candidates or observers. The IEC has, cognizant of these extra-ordinary challenges, developed and implemented several improvements to strengthen the integrity of its election results system.

An area sometimes overlooked by managers and developers of results management systems is the ability for people to actually implement the results protocols. In other words, sufficient time and resources need to be allocated to ensure an effective training program. The IEC has been fully cognizant of this and therefore dedicated extensive attention to ensure poll worker manuals that are adapted to suit also individuals whose literacy levels are not ideal for the tasks at hand, thereby make extensive use of pictures and samples. The training course is also significantly longer than in most countries, as poll workers are trained during four days (two days focusing on voting and the remaining two days on counting and reporting).

The IEC is also aware of the security features used to reduce the risk of fraud are essential to the credibility of the results process. It therefore spends significant resources at procuring ballot papers printed on high-quality security papers with several unique features effectively minimizing the risk of counterfeit ballots entering the electoral process without being detected during the count.

According to the public perception, the main threat to the results management system is however not the actual tabulation of the votes cast, but multiple-voting by individuals holding more than one voter registration card. The reason being that Afghanistan has never had a workable voter registration system. In fact, in spite of four elections and several hundred millions spent on various voter registration processes the afghans are yet to find voters lists in their polling stations on Election Day.^[9] The sub-standard voter registration methodology stems from the Joint Election Management Body-era (JEMB).[10] 

Undoubtedly, voter registration cards will constitute a very real and significant threat to the integrity of the Afghan elections by creating the appearance of impropriety. The fact that voter registration lists are not used in polling stations further facilitates fraud by individuals holding more than one voter registration card. Hence, the vulnerability for fraud due to a non-functional voter registration system is very high in Afghanistan. It is important to note, however, that high fraud vulnerability does not automatically translate into actual fraud. The question is, however, the extent to which a significant number of individuals are able to vote multiple times on Election Day and thereby capitalize on the dysfunctional voter registration system to affect the outcome of the election.

The main question here is not whether a substantial number of eligible voters own multiple registration cards, but if they are able to vote more than once. The IEC has been using election-specific hole punch tools to mark used cards. Unfortunately, in both 2009 and 2010 the hole punches proved to be of uneven quality and failed after limited usage on Election Day in various polling stations across the country. Regardless, even if the hole punch tools had worked for the duration of the day, voters could still vote in multiple polling stations by simply using a different registration card.

Indelible ink has de facto become the only deterrent against multiple voting in Afghanistan, as polling stations lack unique voter lists. Unfortunately, in spite of the procurement of ink of the highest quality and with specifications in line with international best practice, the IEC continues to struggle to instil confidence in stakeholders about the effectiveness of the inking practice. This issue stems from mistakes made by the JEMB Secretariat during the 2004 presidential election, when poll workers sometimes mistook regular marker pens for the marker pen-style indelible ink dispenser and as a result voters were able to remove the ink.^[11] 

It is worth noting that in cases where high-quality ink is properly stored, applied and allowed to dry on the voter’s finger, the indelible ink actually represents a generally sufficient deterrence against multiple voting. It is by no means fool proof, but certainly plays a significant role in reducing fraud on Election Day in many countries.

In spite of all the criticism raised against the voter registration system and the significant risk of fraud by voters abusing the system by voting multiple times, the largest domestic observer group found very limited proof of multiple voting during the 2010 elections.^[12]The reasons could be numerous. For example, in rural areas, moving from one village to another costs money and given the rudimentary infrastructure also takes a significant amount of time. Queuing and transportation to polling stations also reduce the number of hours available to individuals to conduct multiple voting. Furthermore, due to the social cohesiveness of local communities, it is sometimes difficult for strangers to appear at a polling station to cast a vote without causing suspicion and being questioned.

In order to overcome a significant fraud risk during the tabulation of the results, the IEC made two strategically important changes to the election results forms. Instead of requiring poll workers to only write the numerical numbers for votes received by political parties and candidates, the results need to be spelled out in writing thereby closing the loophole whereby a 290 suddenly becomes 1290 votes on the form during results aggregation. The second important improvement made to the results form and procedures was to require Polling Centre Managers to cover the results’ portion of the form with scotch-tape thereby preventing attempts to change the reported results by altering the figures. In addition, attempts to remove the tape would tear the form and thereby render the attempted manipulation unsuccessful, as the form would be set aside for further investigation. The IEC also made extensive use of serial numbered tamper-evident bags and hand-over forms to supervise transportation of results forms from polling stations to the National Tally Centre in Kabul. 

Existing weaknesses in the results management system    

In spite of numerous safeguards and an appreciation of the results system’s fraud risks by the IEC leadership, the Commission still threw out some 1.3M ballots during the 2010 elections thereby affecting the outcome in many of the parliamentary seats.

The reasons for the large number of invalidated votes are numerous, but certain factors are more salient than others. For instance, even though the IEC made changes to its recruitment policies and even blacklisted a significant number of ad hoc workers from future employment due to improper behaviour and actions, recruitment and training of poll workers and DFCs remain a challenge. The IEC still faces challenges to identify poll workers with sufficient literacy and numerical skills to perform the required duties. This problem is especially significant for women polling stations. Effective supervision of these categories of employees also remains insufficient by IEC’s permanent officers something that directly impacted the training of polling officials as many of the trainings were significantly curtailed and training material not used as planned. On top of that, intimidation, violence, bribery and politically compromised poll workers and DFCs further compromised the results system generating a highly problematic tabulation and aggregation process as a very large number of results forms proved incorrect.

Based on experiences from the 2009 election, the IEC had made significant improvements to the intake and investigative part of the results system at the National Tally Centre. The decision-making process had also been streamlined and clarified thereby avoiding inconsistencies and a more formalized system before the IEC Board of Commissioners made decisions to include, or exclude, polling station results. However, the investigative teams - reviewers and auditors of results forms - at the National Tally Centre in Kabul faced a major challenge: they only had access to the results forms and not actual ballot papers as ballot boxes were stored in the provinces. Subsequently IEC’s headquarters and its provincial offices were tasked with auditing or recounting 3,345 polling stations thereby affecting almost 18% of all polling stations in the country.[13]  Although additional resources had been allocated in anticipation of some challenges with the results tabulation, the Commission had not foreseen a problem of such a magnitude. In order not to derail the results aggregation process, fraud triggers, which should have initialized investigation and collection of corroborating evidence, were instead improperly treated as sufficient evidence in and of themselves to invalidate ballots. [14] Thus, the categorization of all invalid ballots as fraudulent by the IEC was inaccurate and served to undermine the credibility of the IEC. Improvements to the election results management system are therefore required in Afghanistan without which reliable and timely results cannot be released by the IEC.