The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Monday announced transferring over 1.7 million biometric votes so far to its main server.
IEC Commissioner Rahima Zarifi told reporters in Kabul so far 1,737,078 biometric votes from 22,588 voting stations had been transferred to the central server while votes from 4,000 more booths were processed and being transferred to the central server.
IEC Chairman Hawa Alam Nuristani said that 25,583 results sheets had so far been added to the result collection process at the central tally hall while the same amount of result sheets had been scanned.
She said 25, 560 forms had been cleared while 25,522 other result sheets have been entered into the system.
Mawlana Abdullah, another IEC commissioner, said: “3,018 voting booths had been announced closed. The votes of over 20,000 polling booths have been counted while 3980 would be counted till tomorrow evening and transferred to the server.”
IEC Commissioner Awrangzai assured of solution to technical problems in the central server, saying that the transfer of materials last night was quick, and hopefully all information forms of polling stations would be available in the central server till the evening of the following day.
The primary result of September 28 polls in which 16 candidates took part is expected to be announced on October 19 while the final result would be announced on November 7.
In the meantime, US Ambassador to Afghanistan, John Bass, on Monday voiced support for the decision of the country’s electoral authorities to count only biometrically verified votes.
“We support the commission’s decision to only count biometrically verified votes,” Ambassador John Bass said addressing reporters during his visit to the Independent Election Commission.
The diplomat said that he discussed with election officials the importance of “clarifying for the Afghan people how many polling centers and polling stations were closed and where they were located so that as biometric process goes forward, people have confidence that the electronic results verified physical results.”
Stressing on integrity of the election, the envoy said that it was important that people have confidence in the vote rather than trying to meet an artificial deadline.
