Afghan Election: Ballot Shortages Show Lessons Not Learned

One of the biggest criticisms of Afghanistan’s otherwise much-lauded first-round election was a chronic shortage of ballot papers. Tens of thousands of people, some waiting in line for hours, were turned away.

It appears tragedy has struck twice, because during the June 14 runoff between Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, ballot shortages were reported in as many as half of the country's 34 provinces.

After the first round on April 5, observers accused election authorities of being unprepared for the unprecedented turnout of around 7 million people.

Election officials themselves said the shortage of ballots was actually a calculated move -- an effort to prevent the widespread fraud and ballot-box stuffing that critics alleged took place during the presidential election of 2009.

One reason cited at the time was that unexpectedly low turnout left a high number of leftover ballots available to be filled in. To prevent such a situation from developing again, each polling station was limited to only 600 ballots this time around.