Evidence is mounting that fraud in last weekend's parliamentary election was so widespread that it could affect the results in a third of provinces, calling into question the credibility of a vote that was an important test of the U.S. and Afghan effort to build a stable and legitimate government. The complaints to provincial election commissions have so far included video clips showing ballot stuffing; the strong-arming of election officials by candidates' agents; and even the handcuffing and detention of election workers. In some places, election officials themselves are alleged to have carried out the fraud; in others, government employees did, witnesses said. One video showed election officials and a candidate's representatives haggling over the price of votes. Many of the complaints have come from candidates and election officials, but they were supported by Afghan and international election observers and diplomats. The fraud appeared to cut both for and against the government of President Hamid Karzai, much of it benefiting sometimes unsavory local power brokers. But in the important southern province of Kandahar, where election officials threw out 76 percent of the ballots in last year's tainted presidential election, candidates accused the president's influential half brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, of drawing up a list of winners even before the Sept. 18 election for parliament was carried out. U.S. and international diplomats kept their distance from the tide of candidate complaints this week, and NATO and U.S. Embassy officials said little other than that the election was an Afghan process and that it was the Afghans who were responsible for its outcome. The Election Complaints Commission said Thursday that it had received more than 3,000 complaints since last Saturday's election. So far they have registered case files on nearly 1,800 of those complaints -- 58 percent of which were considered serious enough to affect the outcome of the balloting. That may change in the course of investigations, but that preliminary figure is high, election monitors said. The complaints are not evenly distributed and were markedly worse in 13 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. In those 13, at least half the complaints were deemed to be high priority -- forecasting bitter fights over the outcome. In addition, complaints in four provinces -- Kandahar, Nuristan, Zabul and Paktika -- have yet to be categorized, but fraud is expected to be extensive and has already been widely reported. Lawmakers and opposition candidates openly accused the Karzais, and in particular Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful official in Kandahar, of fixing the election for a list of favored candidates. 