Disagreements over aspects of the criteria in regards to vote invalidation will be resolved Wednesday said and presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani-Ahmadzai's campaign spokesman, Tahir Zuhair, on Wednesday.
“The auditing conducted in the past few days is conclusive; everything has been conducted within the legal frameworks at place," Zuhair said. "The two electoral camps will finalize the vote invalidation criteria today."
Ghani-Ahmadzai and opponent Abdullah Abdullah's teams have held several rounds of discussions but did not reach a conclusive agreement on the criteria for the auditing process.
Reports indicate that majority of the disagreements are surrounded by the following controversial conditions:
1) Votes should be invalidated if the number of votes in a center is not consistent with the number of voters registered.
2) Votes should be invalidated if the registered numbers are repetitive.
Abdullah's camp has stressed that it is important to finalize the criteria so that the auditing process continues to move forward.
“There is no choice except to finalize the criteria,” Fazel Ahmad Manavi, who is in charge of the technical negotiations in Abdullah’s camp, said. "There are some disputed points, but I am confident that we will reach an agreement and the document will be finalized."
The recent negotiations between the technical teams of the two candidates come 11 days after the candidates reached an agreement on the overall auditing process. If the issue is not resolved, the current disagreements could potentially lead to questioning the legitimacy of the entire auditing process.