Pakistani printers busy cranking out fake Afghan voting cards
Peshawar: Printers in this city near the Afghan border say they have produced thousands of fake voter registration cards at the request of Afghan politicians for use in that country’s parliamentary elections on Saturday.
The cards, some shown to The Associated Press, add to evidence that fraud could undermine the elections and further destabilize the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai…
Regulation of voting has been improved, but an influx of fake cards raises the possibility of a person with multiple voter cards voting many times and could still cause problems in an insecure country where monitoring of polling stations will likely be spotty.
Three printers in a dimly lit section of Peshawar’s Storytellers’ Bazaar told the AP that Afghan election candidates had traveled to the walled heart of the ancient city about an hour from the border and provided them with samples of Afghan voter registration cards.
The printers said they had produced thousands of cards, along with plastic sheaths to laminate them, for roughly 23 cents apiece.
The fakes shown to the AP resembled genuine Afghan cards, but it was not clear if they would withstand close scrutiny.
Two of the printers spoke on condition of anonymity because the activity is illegal. Tariq Khan, a 32-year-old printer, told the AP that times were tough for printers in Peshawar, and he had accepted the registration card requests because it was more profitable than ordinary work.
”Several candidates from various parts of Afghanistan have purchased these cards,” he said. ”Now it is their headache how they use them.”
How long have we been in charge of nation-building over there?
I use the phrase “in charge” rhetorically. Of course.
