Training for the voting and ballot counting procedures

15 Aug 2009

Training for the voting and ballot counting procedures

KABUL - In the north east of Afghanistan the Independent Election Commission has started the training for more than 19,000 staff for Election Day.

They’ll be trained on the working procedures for the voting and the ballot counting for the 20 August presidential and provincial council elections.

“The trained staff members will cover 957 polling centers and 3,639 polling stations in the four provinces of Kunduz, Takhar, Baghlan and Badakhshan,” said Mrs Ayesha Yaqubi, the IEC training officer for the Northeast region.

“Each polling station consists of five staff members with different tasks: polling station chairperson, queue controller, identification/inking officer, ballot paper issuer and ballot box controller,” she added.

On Election Day there will sections for male and female voters and some polling stations for the Kuchi nomads.

“Be very careful that there are some sensitive materials in each polling station such as ballot papers, ballot papers stamp, filled form of the counting result and irremovable finger ink, don’t allow any one to touch these materials,” said Rahmat Shah Hanifi one of the IEC trainers.

The aim of the training is to ensure polling day staff members are familiar with all the election procedures and regulations for the voting and counting processes.

At the same time they will also be able to help people to vote and they will implement anti-fraud measures and ensure impartiality.

“It was very useful workshop, we learnt a lot, I understood the procedures which were trained today, how to identify the voters and how to help them to vote,” said Sayed Sabir one the participants who has been recruited as a polling station chairperson.

“I had some experiences from the previous election, but there are new changes in the process, I learnt new things, I hope this training help me to support my people in using their democratic rights,” said Mrs Fahima one of the participants who will be an identification and ink officer in Kunduz.

By Shamsuddin Hamedi, UNAMA

Website: Independent Election Commission