Kabul ? Afghan officials issued full preliminary results Wednesday showing President Hamid Karzai got 54.6 percent of the vote in last month’s election, a result that could be annulled by mounting fraud allegations.

European Union election monitors say fraud is indicated in more than a quarter of the 5.6 million votes counted.

The Aug. 20 vote has been so tainted by reports of ballot-box stuffing and questionable tallies that many expect the final results to vary widely from the preliminary count after fraudulent ballots are thrown out.

If enough votes are thrown out for Karzai to drop below 50 percent, it will force him into a two-man runoff with top challenger Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister who has 27.7 percent of the vote. The preliminary count gave Karzai 3.1 million votes to Abdullah’s 1.6 million.