Afghanistan's election commission has disqualified another three election winners, taking the total number of candidates stripped of victory to 24. The candidates were stripped of victory over fraud and irregularities during the September 18 elections. Earlier, three were disqualified because they had failed to resign from jobs in government. Under Afghan law, government officials cannot contest elections. Election authorities have also invalidated about 1.3 million of the 5.6 million votes cast and disqualified 19 candidates who were declared winners in preliminary results. The candidates were disqualified after the Electoral Complaints Commission investigated widespread claims of irregularities that tarnished the poll for the 249 seats in the lower house of parliament. The Commission received more than 5,000 complaints of fraud in the wake of the poll. Of those, 2,500 complaints were classed as serious.