By J Alexander Thier and
Sara Thrall
The slow trickle of results from Afghanistan's August 20
presidential elections paired with its high volume of fraud complaints is
pushing that country's already fragile political system into crisis. Thus,
anxiously awaiting the vote totals like everyone else, we decided to try and
extrapolate the outcome based on the official vote totals released by the
Independent Electoral Commission.
As of August 31st, results from 47.8% of polling stations had been released.
These include vote tallies from all 34 provinces, but at different rates. Votes
from only 2.7% of polling stations in Nuristan
have been added to the count, whereas 86% of the total polling stations in
Jowzjan have been recorded.
In order to reach a result, we have weighted the partial votes from each
province as if the results were 100% of polling stations reporting. Thus, if
Balkh province is reporting 100 voters with 50% of stations reporting, we
counted Balkh as having 200 voters, and multiplied the candidates individual
tallies by the same factor as well.
Caveat Emptor
There are a slew of provisos here about our method and the
results.
- The
percentages reported are the number of polling stations and not the number
of actual votes; however, our calculation counts the percent reported as
equivalent to the percent of votes. It may be that some polling stations
are larger than others -- perhaps with urban results reporting in but not
rural areas, thus skewing the eventual totals.
- This
same problem could also skew the way in which people voted. We assume 40%
for Karzai at 60% reporting will also mean 40% for Karzai at 100%
reporting. Maybe urban voters, or those from safer areas (where reporting
presumably came in first) won't vote the same as those in other areas.
- Several
provinces still have low percentages of poling stations tallied which
reduces the likely accuracy of their extrapolations, e.g. Paktika at 6.2%,
Kandahar at 13.7%, Helmand
at 12.9%
- The
initial releases are only for "clean" stations, which means that
the data entry of the results form revealed no automatic red flags (e.g. a
station that has 600 votes cast all for one person). Polling stations with
implausibly high numbers of votes will only be added towards the end (if
at all), which could effect the outcome.
- Our
result is based on the relative accuracy of the total extrapolated number
of votes, which could also be off. This is important because it's not
about who comes in first, but rather whether one of the candidates tops
50%. If the total extrapolated votes is too high or too low, it would make
all the difference in a tight race.
And the Winner Is...?
All that said, as demonstrated in the chart available here, we show
Karzai with 49.2% of the vote and Abdullah with 26.7%, out of a total of
5,644,906 votes. That suggests a run-off, but with Karzai at a substantial
advantage in the second round. It also shows that the outcome may be very close
to the 50% mark, which means that decisions to include or exclude votes based
on allegations of fraud may well decide the whole election.
J Alexander Thier is the director for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the United States
Institute of Peace, where Sara Thrall, the author of
"Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan:
Necessary and Inadequate" (University
of London, SOAS Masters
Thesis, 2008), is a program assistant.
Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
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