Afghan Vote Fraud: 1.3M Ballots Tossed

Karzai Falls Below 50% Runnoff Threshhold; Final Decision on New Election Still Pending

(CBS/AP)  Last Updated at 6:39 p.m. Eastern

U.N.-backed fraud investigators on Monday threw out nearly a third of President Hamid Karzai's votes from the August election, undercutting his claim of victory and stepping up the pressure for him to accept a runoff.

U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has been holding off on a decision to send more troops to Afghanistan until a credible government is installed in Kabul.

Both U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon signaled on Monday that a resolution was near.

Clinton said Karzai planned to announce his intentions on Tuesday, adding that she was "encouraged at the direction the situation is moving."

A spokeswoman for Ban said he spoke with Karzai and the Afghan leader assured him he will "fully respect" the constitutional process even if it means a runoff against his top challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Afghanistan

The findings by the Electoral Complaints Commission dropped Karzai's votes to 48 percent of the total, below the 50 percent threshold needed for him to avoid a runoff, according to calculations by independent election monitors.

Still, it was uncertain whether the Afghan-led Independent Election Commission, which is dominated by Karzai supporters, would accept the findings and announce a second round.

Their independence was put into question when CBS News correspondent Mandy Clark visited officials counting the vote last month.

The commission assured Clark they set aside thousands of questionable ballots. But, when CBS News looked inside the quarantine room, nothing was there.

Karzai campaign spokesman Waheed Omar said the Karzai camp was waiting for the election commission to formally certify the U.N.-backed panel's findings, thereby giving them the force of law. Although short of an unequivocal pledge to accept a run-off, the statement appeared to represent a step in that direction after days of outright rejection.

Karzai's camp had complained about the panel of three foreigners and two Afghans which conducted the fraud investigation, saying foreigners were unfairly influencing the outcome.

Last week Karzai aides suggested he might contest the findings, setting off a series of last-minute diplomatic efforts, including visits by U.S. Sen. John Kerry, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as well as telephone calls by Clinton and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Karzai met again late Monday with Kerry and U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry to discuss the standoff.

The two-month election crisis threatens to undermine the Obama administration's Afghan strategy at a time when public support for the eight-year war is declining in the U.S. and the Taliban-led insurgents are gaining strength. The White House says Obama will not decide whether to send thousands more U.S. troops to Afghanistan until the political crisis is resolved.

Preliminary results released last month showed Karzai winning more than 54 percent of the vote in the 36-candidate race. However, proclamation of a Karzai victory was withheld until the U.N.-backed commission finished its investigation into widespread fraud allegations.

The inquiry was concluded last week, but the panel withheld releasing the findings while talks were held with the Karzai-dominated election commission that must certify the results and order any runoff.

The U.N.-backed panel decided to release its report Monday after the Afghan commissioners kept insisting on changes that would show Karzai winning outright. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Abdullah campaign spokesman Fazel Sancharaki welcomed the fraud panel's findings as "a step forward" and said the election commission had no choice but to call a runoff.

Afghans close to Karzai said the president feared the runoff was part of an Obama administration plan to oust him - a charge the U.S. has repeatedly denied. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not supposed to speak for Karzai.

Afghan officials say they can organize a runoff in about two weeks, which is close to the start of winter. After the first snows fall in the high mountain passes, it will become all but impossible to hold an election until the spring. A second round vote would also run the risk of Taliban attacks on voters similar to those carried out during the first ballot.

For those reasons, Western diplomats have urged the two sides to reach a power-sharing agreement which would avoid a new vote and bring an end to the crisis. Former U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and others held a series of weekend talks with the rival camps on a possible power-sharing deal.

Officials familiar with the talks, speaking on condition of anonymity because the discussions were confidential, said both sides were open to the power-sharing idea but were far apart on details. Karzai has said he would be willing to offer posts to the opposition in a new government - which falls short of a real coalition with clearly defined powers.

After the auditors' findings were released, U.N. spokesman Aleem Siddique said a runoff "isn't optional."

"It's a requirement of Afghan electoral law, and we expect the institutions of this country to follow the law to the letter," he said.

The U.S. Embassy called on the election commission "to implement these orders with all due speed."

Grant Kippen, the Canadian who heads the fraud panel, said he did not see any legal way for the election commission to reject the findings.

"Our decisions, our orders, are final and binding according to the law," Kippen said. "We've followed the law very clearly, very precisely. My sense is that the IEC is going to follow the law as well."

Investigators released only raw data from their findings, but it was clear that more than 900,000 of Karzai's 3 million votes were voided, along with about 191,500 ballots cast for Abdullah. More than 5 million votes were cast, of which 1.3 million invalidated, according to Democracy International, the election monitoring group that calculated Karzai's totals at 48 percent.

Karzai, who came to power soon after the collapse of the Taliban in the U.S.-led invasion of 2001, was close to the Bush administration but fell out of favor in Washington because of perceived weakness and indecision in the face of a growing insurgency which exploited Afghan public frustration over corrupt and ineffectual government.

Much of the electoral fraud appeared to have occurred in the south, homeland of Karzai's fellow ethnic Pashtuns where the Taliban are strongest. Taliban threats kept thousands of Pashtuns from the polls in areas where the president had been expected to run strong.

[BeckieBest]

And the right wing nuts want us to rush in and prop up this government?

[Sloughfoot]

Hopefully U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the CIA can not be fingerred as being a party to this dictators election fraud. Best thing that can happen now is for Karzi to disapear like Houdini in a cloud of smoke-literally.

[us_1776]

Karzai was installed as a puppet of Bush/Cheney crime syndicate. He was put there to protect oil pipeline deals. But he went off on his own rogue mission of corruption. For the long-term sake of Afghanistan, Karzai needs to go. He tried to steal the election. But he was caught red-handed. Now the UN and the international community need to very closely monitor the runoff election.

[skyk-2009]

We can not, we MUST not, get this nation bogged down in a quagmire here. IF this nation does NOT have a Government after 8 years of protection from our military, there's a very good chance they will not have one in another 8 years. There is no sense, at this point, trying to make a success out of one of the WORST command decisions EVER in the history of this nation.

[mjlewis6]

Perhaps, had we had a UN Commission check our Florida results and the means to obstruct voters in four major counties in Florida in 2000, we would not have had George W. Bush as President. A nice RUNOFF or DO OVER since the Counting Chads incident pales by comparison with the dropping registered voters by a margin of 4 for every name that appeared similar to felons on Texas rolls, an arbitrary use of a subcontractor to summarily delete those names, under the orders of Katherine Harris, a later member of the Bush Administration. Gee...!!

We could have done without 8 years of a Bush Administration that wanted to start an arms race with Russia, use Social Security on Wall Street for investments (gee, the market imploded in fall 2008 and would have wiped out Social Security)...Iraq...wmd's and abu gharib, torture, renditions, Guantanamo....etc etc....

And we would have completed the job in Afghanistan...and who knows...maybe even Benazir Butto would have lived because Mussharaff would have been forced out of office earlier due to our military
pressure for the Pakistanis to fight the Taliban...Gee...

If only we had counted all the votes!!! In 2000

[hungry1968-16]

by Marc_1986 October 19, 2009 4:40 PM EDT
@hungry

I wish you'd just move on. Obama is in office now so why are we focusing on what Bush did instead of what Obama is doing? Bush didn't rig the 1.3M ballots... Nor did he 'appoint' Karzai.

Radical conservatism is just as bad as radical liberalism. We're not much better off with Obama; we just shifted to the other side of the spectrum.






While I disagree with Obama on many things, you simply CANNOT say that radical conservatism is as bad as radical liberalism - extremists or otherwise. (I don't even know what "radical liberalism" is. Got some examples?)

Conservatism nearly plunged our economy into the abyss, it brought us two unsustainable wars that has nearly broken our military, and has allowed Wall St to write it's own rules while all existing regulations were ignored or removed altogether. Conservatism loosely translates into an ideological war waged on America and it's middle class, by the wealthy, politically connected, and powerfully elite.


It would be much more accurate to compare extremist conservatism to radical Islam, since BOTH of their ideologies seem to be designed to destroy America, and harm America's middle class / citizenry.

[boatdocster]

Actually Karzai was appointed initially by Bush and is an ex-oil insider. No surprise since Dickless Cheney was interested in the oil pipeline that was proposed across Afghanistan.

On the flip side, Obama needs to grow a set and start making good on his promises. 30% plus percent of Karzai's votes are frauds - either the US needs to tell the oil bagger to step or we need to step out. Any premise of an "Afghan democracy" after this type of election fraud makes the USA a joke.

[hungry1968-16]

by NewYork-Joe-5 October 19, 2009 4:23 PM EDT
No, a new set of more disasterous policies surpassed what we thought was bad.....it got worse with this administration






LOL!!!

What a joke!!

Heaven forbid that our president actually tries to REPAIR our economy rather than destroy it, and avoids plunging us into needless wars based on ideology, right Joe?!?

[PVperson2]

If we increase troop levels before the election is decided, we will look like we're protecting a puppet dictator. If Karzai refuses to allow a runoff, we should start a pull out. The last thing we need in the Middle East is to look more like aggressors than we all already do.

Oh and by the way, Obama IS trying to repair our economy, isn't that what you neo-cons are screaming about, his attempts? Plus, didn't your idol Bush start these wars, thought so. Just another MESS made by the GOP that the democrats are expected to clean up.

[hungry1968-16]

by Marc_1986 October 19, 2009 4:44 PM EDT
@USA_is_back

The left 'wing-nuts' have their own rantings:

WMDs Oil WMDs Dick Cheney WMDs Blackwater Neo-Conservatism WMDs Oil Facist Karl Rove Facist Facist Religious Nut WMDs Oil







We were sent into an unnecessary war over WMD's, the whole time in Iraq preferred contractors replaced our professional military to do the same job at five times the cost, since 2005 gas seemingly NEVER went below $3 / a gallon and was over $4 several months.

It seems that OUR claims were true. Too bad you can't make the same statement, huh?

[hungry1968-16]

by Marc_1986 October 19, 2009 4:47 PM EDT
The UN... the same UN that allows Chavez, Ahmadinejad, and others to spew their hatred of the US on a national stage... The ones Obama wants to give more and more power to.

I think I'll pass on the UN tyvm.






And how do you feel about America enforcing UN resolution 181, which has caused instability in the middle east, as well as genocide and apartheid against the Palestinian people since 1948?

[hungry1968-16]

by Marc_1986 October 19, 2009 2:44 PM EDT
@reasoned

Hungry is still living in the Bush years.






Oh that's right - I forgot.

Bush left office, and ALL of the fallout from his disastrous policies went with him, right?



This story is just one more example of how disastrous conservatism really is.

[Marc_1986]

@hungry

I wish you'd just move on. Obama is in office now so why are we focusing on what Bush did instead of what Obama is doing? Bush didn't rig the 1.3M ballots... Nor did he 'appoint' Karzai.

Radical conservatism is just as bad as radical liberalism. We're not much better off with Obama; we just shifted to the other side of the spectrum.

[BeckieBest]

Wingnuts,

We see through your lame attempts to blame Obama for Bush/GOP failures.

[wheresmycountry]

Has there ever been a 100% fair election in the history of elections? The entire process invites corruption. It's too easy to affect the outcomes if you already have power and money.

[Constitionalist]

This needed to happen. The Afghan people need to see that we are committed to fair elections. If Karzai refuses to submit himself to another ballot, then he needs to be removed forcibly. As long as there is question as to his legitimacy we cannot support his administration.

[reasoned1955]

So predictable; so laughable. Do you ever have anything thoughtful or meaningful to contribute to discussions?

[Marc_1986]

@reasoned

Hungry is still living in the Bush years.

[skyk-2009]

Marc_1986, well WHO exactly was it that told ME and this nation that the Taliban wasn't a problem and wasn't important so he could INVADE Iraq if NOT Bush? Who, EXACTLY, was it that IGNORED the Taliban while trying to save face from invading a nation that HAD NOTHING to do with the Attack on this nation if NOT Bush? It would seem to me that those who PUT that INCOMPETENT LOSER in the position to make a BLUNDER like this would, at least, sit down and be quite while the NEW President tries to get us OUT of that BLUNDER!!

[hungry1968-16]

This is typical of a Bush appointee.

[vietnamwar]

by hungry1968-16 October 19, 2009 10:06 AM EDT
This is typical of a Bush appointee.

You mean typical Acorn.....

[skyk-2009]

vietnamwar, PLEASE tell me you don't think the BLUNDER that is AFGHANISTAN is because of ACORN!! Not even a member of the Confederate Party is THAT stupid!!