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Afghanistan

Fake Polls Went for Karzai

Widening accounts of fraud are problematic for U.S.

cheats/2009/09/07/fake-polls-went-for-karzai/karzai-2_heqnus

Rafiq Maqbool / AP Photo

Perhaps Hamid Karzai took Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "victory" as inspiration? Supporters of the Afghan president created as many as 800 polling places that existed only on paper, Western and Afghan officials say. The supporters also took over about 800 real polling centers. In fact, officials said that in some provinces, pro-Karzai votes may exceed voters by a factor of 10. "We are really talking about orders of magnitude," one official said. The fraud accounts may mean the White House, which has 68,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan, faces the prospect of having to defend an administration widely seen as illegitimate.

Read it at The New York Times

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