IEC’s statement about the delay to announcing the preliminary results of the presidential election (AAN’s working translation)

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IEC’s statement about the delay to announcing the preliminary results of the presidential election (AAN’s working translation)

Date: 19 October 2019

First of all, the IEC apologises to the people of Afghanistan and the stakeholders involved in the election process for not announcing and publishing the preliminary results of 28 September election.

The IEC appreciates and thanks the responsible participation of citizens in the election to determine their political destiny, and all supports by the stakeholders involved in the election affairs.

The IEC after the election day, especially when it received the all-out supports of the stakeholders and international supporters of the election because of holding transparent election and better management of the election, focused all its efforts to manage the post-election day processes properly and in better way. Therefore, time management and care and transparency in processing the results on the other were the important and fundamental issues ahead of the IEC. However, the IEC due to technical reasons and more for ensuring transparency could not announce the preliminary results at the time specified in the electoral calendar. It is worth sharing the reports of the performance of the IEC with the people and other stakeholders in accordance with article 89 of the electoral law. 

1. The IEC, after security assessments, could prepare election materials for 5,373 polling centres containing 29,586 polling stations (11,119 female polling stations and 18,467 male polling stations).
2. After the final security assessment by the country’s security agencies, out of 5,373 polling centres, 431 polling centres were closed. 
3. The IEC recruited more than 200,000 people for the polling day, conducted proper training programmes for several days and [ensured] proper training for each employee. 
4. The IEC launched extensive countywide public awareness programmes through its employees and media.
5. According to reports from the IEC’s provincial offices, on election day, in total, 4,685 polling centres opened. 
6. After the election, all the sensitive election materials including the boxes containing biometric machines were received from the provincial offices at the IEC headquarters. 
7. Photo of result sheets and the digital result forms were supposed to be transmitted from the polling stations to the headquarters through internet on election day, but due to the disconnection of the mobile networks, it became impossible to send these data. The day following election day, the IEC finally started the process of receiving sensitive materials and processing them in the IEC headquarters which unfortunately faced numerous problems including the transfer of biometric data into the server due to problems with Dermalog application. After ten days, the transfer of biometric data to the central server was resumed.
8. In addition, for the purpose of ensuring transparency, the agents and observers are always present in each of the electoral processes. Their positive presence is appreciated but sometimes candidates’ agents disrupt the process due to various reasons which are not in their mandate at all which we have unfortunately witnessed several times. The IEC seriously expect candidates’ agents and political parties to operate within the jurisdiction of their duties and not cause disruption and suspension of the process. 
9. The IEC carries out the result tabulation on three pivots:

• Tallying of results in the National Tally Centre
• Tallying of results in the Digital Tally Centre
• Transferring voters’ biometric data to the server and separating the duplicate and underage biometric details.

In the National Tally Centre, the IEC has so far processed 25,566 result sheets, of which 1,329 forms have problems whose data need to be reviewed. Also, 482 forms have not been received and the IEC, after analysis of the biometric data, will ask for the copies of the results sheets of these stations from the respective ballot boxes according to the procedure.

 In the Digital Tally Centre where the photo of result sheets and the digital result forms were supposed to be received, the IEC has so far processed 23,176 result forms and in this centre, the number of voters biometrically verified has also been determined but the biometric data need to be analysed in the relevant server to find out duplicate and underage [ones]. 

In total, the IEC had assigned 34,958 biometric devices for the election day. 34,767 have been retrieved to the headquarters, but 199 devices have [not] been retrieved to the headquarters about which reviews are underway.

 The data of 23,176 biometric machines have been transferred to the central server which contain the data of 1,786,458 voters. But 2,888 biometric devices have been qaurantined due to reasons such as broken screens, cannot be switched on and not having the photo of result sheets on the election day and other reasons which have now been taken out of quarantine and are being reviewed in the presence of agents and observers and the biometric data existing in them are being transferred to the server. 

• According to the electoral law, regulation and procedures of the candidates election campaign fiancé, candidates were duty bound to present the reports of their campaign finance in two rounds to the IEC and the report to be published along with the preliminary results and the violators be introduced to the ECC. Now the final report of the finance of the candidates’ election campaign has been prepared which will be published through the IEC’s website. Voters, political parties and candidates can consult the ECC and file their objection and complaints if they do not consider the report of the financial affairs of the candidates as realistic or find it incomplete or if there is document that there has been financing from illegal sources. 
• We hope you stay patient so that the result tabulation process is completed in the presence of agents and observers through a transparent process.
• We request all the candidates and their supporters and the media to avoid publishing statistics and figures until the preliminary results are officially released by the IEC in accordance with the law.