by Patrick Appel
The NYT's new At War blog has been updating this post on Afghan elections throughout the day:
As Reuters explains, Afghanistan will take weeks to count the ballots cast today — perhaps in part because the country’s Independent Election Commission distributed ballot boxes to hard to reach areas of the country using 3039 cars, 3 helicopters and 3171 donkeys, which all now have to make their way back to Kabul. Preliminary results won’t be announced until September 3 and final results come two weeks later. If no presidential candidate wins more than 50 per cent of the votes in the first round, there will be a second round run-off between the top two candidates, most likely on October 1.
The Dish 