KABUL - Nearly 53 percent of the votes cast in the second round of the presidential polls have been audited, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced on Tuesday.

IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told a press conference 12,180 ballot boxes, accounting for 53 percent of the total votes, had been recounted until Monday night.

He said the commission was inching toward its target of reviewing a thousand ballot boxes on a daily basis, with 1,047 boxes reviewed yesterday. The panel is trying to maintain the current tempo.

Although all government departments were closed on account of the Independence day holiday, the IEC personnel remained on duty to speed up the process involving national and international observers and representatives of both candidates, he added.

Simultaneously, the special audit of the 6,000 suspect ballot boxes identified by the two election teams is also underway. Noor said 209 of the boxes had been recounted so far, with the UN contributing 103 experts to national and international observers.

According to a well-placed source, 4,797 votes of Ashraf Ghani and 2,891 of Dr. Abdullah have been found invalid. Ghani's ballots came from 84 different polling stations and Abdullah's from 72.

Fifty-three percent of the votes had been reviewed, but the process of annulment was yet to be set in motion, the spokesman explained, promising stepped-up efforts to complete the recound by the end of the month. (Pajhwok)