Afghanistan to begin massive vote audit today

The Afghan election commission is set to start on Thursday an unprecedented audit of all 8.1 million votes cast in the 14 June run-off presidential election, an official said.  The audit, which will take at least three weeks, was agreed by the two rival candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani at the weekend following two days of frantic diplomacy by US secretary of state John Kerry. 

‘The auditing will officially begin on Thursday, it will be done in Kabul and in commission’s headquarters,’ Noor Mohammad Noor, spokesman for the Independent Election Commission (IEC), told reporters.  ‘National and international observers will be able to observe the process that will take around three weeks.’