KABUL - The Independent Election Commission (IEC) on Saturday said more than 5,000 ballot boxes had been audited so far and invalidating the votes would begin this week.

The commission said the auditing process was going on successfully and 618 ballot boxes had been recounted in the presence of Afghan and international observers on Friday.

IEC spokesman Noor Mohammad Noor told a news conference that 25 percent of the vote audit -- or 5,271 of 23,000 ballot boxes -- had been completed.

The ballot boxes audited are from Kabul, Herat, Ghor, Ghazni, Paktika, Balkh, Wardak, Panjsher, Logar, Faryab, Takhar, Baghlan and Sar-I-Pul provinces, he said.

Noor added the process was going normally in two shifts involving 200 auditors. Efforts are on to accelerate the process and the number of auditors will increase to 300 in coming days.

He continued invalidating votes would begin during the current week after special software for scrutiny was installed in IEC computers. (Pajhwok)