Printers in a Pakistan 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 AP, add to evidence that fraud could undermine the elections and further destabilize the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
A fraud-marred presidential election last year threatened the credibility of the Afghan administration at home and with the Western nations waging war on the country's resurgent Taliban. 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.
(More Afghan election stories.)