After the retrieval of the ballot boxes, we had to count all the ballot papers. It was a lot of work. In the Count Center we established 16 count units.
The results of Badghis can be found on www.jemb.org.
Andrey, our Count Officer, is explaining to the governor how the counting process is conducted.
During the days we had sensitive material on the road, an operation center in the election compound was established at provincial level. In that operational center liaison officers from the Afghan National Army, the Afghan National Police, the governor, the provincial police, the Spanish Provincial Reconstruction Team were present.
The operation center was under the command of the Provincial Election Officer. That's me!
On E-Day the day started at 05.00.
The idea of an operational center is to have all the parties present who have a role to play in the security. In case something happens, coordination is important.
In practice it meant that most of the members were very bored sitting the whole day in our dining room. Luckely there was televison and an internet connection. The provincial operation center was dismantled today.
Photo's of the election day in Badghis, Afghanistan on september 18th, 2005
Election Day will be the 18th of September.
These days we are busy distributing all our polling material to the districts. From the district the material will find their way to the polling centers. The plan is to have all the material in place the 17th of September.
The 18th of September all our 528 polling stations in the 7 districts are expected to open on time, that is 06.00.
Below you will see pictures taken from our Counting Center. The counting Center these days function as a distribution center.
All the District Field Coordinators are back in Qala-i Naw. They identified and trained the polling station staff.
We have 127 district field coordinators. Our total number of polling centers is 173.
Those 173 have a total of 528 polling stations. 60 of these polling stations are especially for Kutchi's.
Every polling station has a staff of 6 people. Our district field coordinators trained a total of 3180 polling station staff.
Now it is time again for more training for the district feld coordinators. After polling, they will come back with there ballot boxes to the count center in Qala-i-Naw. There they will be the ones who will do the counting. Here they are getting a training in counting procedures.
Hier zijn een aantal foto's te zien van de aankomst van materieel.
Afghanistan goes to the polls on Sept. 18 to elect a lower house of parliament and councils in each of its 34 provinces.
Following are some facts and figures about the elections, being held nearly a year after President Hamid Karzai won a five-year term.
Counting is an essential part of elections. In my province we could not find a suitable place for counting. That meant that we had to build our own counting center. As you can see from the pictures, we started from nothing.
This is how the place looked like, before we were building our Counting Center. There was simply nothing. It was an open area next to "Airport Qala-i-Naw". When a plane lands in Qala-i-Naw, the pilot first flies low over the landing strip to chase the donkeys away and to warn the people. The plane goes up in the air again and the second time it will land.
