At least 400,000 people have received new paper national identity cards in the past two months and most of these people are eligible to vote, the population registration department of Afghanistan’s census department said Thursday.

According to the authority, more than 4,000 staff members are working at 1,053 centers to issue identity cards to applicants.

“People’s turnout for paper identity card’s has been very low, but recently, especially last week, the attendance of paper identity cards applicants was extremely high,” the department’s spokesman Rohullah Ahmadzai said.

Meanwhile, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah’s spokesman Mujib Rahman Rahimi said the use of fake identity cards will be prevented during the upcoming elections.

“The number of identity cards which are registered at polling stations will be checked against the database of the population registration center (during elections),” Rahimi said.

Analysts said the process of issuing paper identity cards should be completed before the voter registration process ends.

“These two processes require a proper mechanism. All Afghans should receive an identity card and they should be provided with the opportunity to register to vote in the upcoming elections,” Hasani Mubarak Azizi, a university lecturer said.

The process to issue paper identity cards started on February 21 and is being carried out in 34 provinces.