Afghanistan: How Much Election Fraud Is Okay?

Abstract

As allegations of election fraud, intimidation, violence and ballot stuffing in the recent Afghan elections increase it seems as if the election in Afghanistan is in that gray area where there was a fair amount of fraud, but it is not yet clear whether there was enough for it to have changed the outcome of the election. This puts the U.S. and other international actors in a complicated position. It is not uncommon in elections in semidemocratic, semi-authoritarian, post-conflict, or as in Afghanistan, mid-conflict countries for some amount of mid-level election fraud and misuse of resources to be discounted by international actors because “the voice of the people was heard”, or to phrase it less delicately “the guy who would’ve won (usually the incumbent), won anyway.”