About three million Afghans were able to vote during Saturday’s election in Afghanistan, and another million are believed to have cast their vote on Sunday’s extended vote. There were several major attacks, and hundreds of casualties.
And at the end of Sunday, a one-day election that turned into twodays still didn’t go very well. Many polling places didn’t open on Saturday, and a lot of those that did were missing paperwork, or had workers not showing up. This meant polls were kept open a few more hours, and 401 were to open Sunday.
Of the 401, 253 actually bothered to open Sunday, with security cocerns keeping the rest closed. Observers were in short supply for the second day amid threats of further violence.
In the end, the UN said they were “encouraged” by how many people were able to vote, but there were clearly many others who were unable to, either due to security, lack of access, or technical glitches.
This is going to lead to the always messy count of votes in notoriously corrupt Afghanistan, and if this is the test for the 2019 presidential election, it’s clear that Afghanistan still has a long way to go.
Out of a 2016 estimated population of about 35 million people, that’s a pretty paltry voter turnout.