Statistical Tests Suggestive of Fraud in Iran's Election

Reader Comments
Back to article

I’m impressed, I have to say. Very seldom do I see a blog thats both educational and entertaining, and let me tell you, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Your blog is important; the matter is something that not a lot of people are talking intelligently about. I’m really happy that I stumbled across this in my search for something relating to it.

Abdullah Al Mamun of CA 5:51AM December 14, 2011

Which approach is appropriate in analyzing an election?
1. Graphs are to be plotted on the basis of unbiased data reflecting a democratic election.
2. Data are to be derived from the graphs plotted by a minor party to meet their requirements.

Dilemma of AL 7:34AM August 09, 2009

The most significant piece of evidence is the obvious one. The size, intensity and duration of protests following the election clearly indicate that many people in Iran don't believe the election was fair. Even if Ahmadinejad actually did win a majority of the legal ballots cast, the perception that he didn't is strong enough to undermine the legitimacy of his government (to the extent that it is "his" anyway, since the Supreme Council seems to exert most of the real power in any case.) Repression of the people protesting the result adds to the perception of illegitimacy.
What remains to be seen is whether Iran will see greater repression long-term, short-term repression followed by gradual reform, or revolution. This issue will not be decided by elections, let alone election monitoring.

Doug Samuelson of VA 1:43PM July 19, 2009

Read

Ala of MD 1:06PM July 19, 2009

Mebane's analysis initially found no evidence of fraud: He was then leaned on by "higher powers" to come up with some evidence in support of it and used the ballot box data.
1) Ahmadinejad's vote proportions incrwase as the invalid vote proportion decreases
2) When this happens the 2BL test shows up anomalies.
Du-uh: If Ahmadinejad was winning big in many small towns of course the 2BL tests would not meet Benford's expectation. And in many towns where he did win big, like in Qom, the invalid vote proportion was large. In many rural districts, people didn't spoil their ballots like disaffected people tend to do in the cities.
The Coloumbia study by two PhD candidates is a joke.....its got so many flaws, I don't know where to begin.

Reza Esfandfiari of VA 4:48AM July 15, 2009

This election was 100% non-democratic no matter was the outcome:
1-All four candidates were coming out of non-democratic filtering of 4000 candidates who dared to nominate themselves.
2- All media were controlled by government.
3- There is no organized political party in Iran.
4- The president could be ousted by the supreme leader at any time (Khomeini ousted first regime president in 1981).
5- The president doest no control armed forces, foreign policy, oil industry and media. These organs are controlled by Supreme leader. The president role is more or less like chief of staff.
6. The people never believed that their opinion mattered. In all elections only 20% of voters bothered to vote. The exception were this election and Khatami's first term which people believed may be change within the system possible only to find out that system was non-reformable.
7. Khamenei was not at 100% control at Khatami's periods. He just successfully ran the government entities bypassying Khatami (which was aligned with Rafsanjni camp), blocking him at evry step of the way and suppressing dissent by security apparutus.
8. In 2005 Khamenei's people raised Ahmadi Nejad from third place to second place enabling him to run off against Rafsanjani and eventually winning the election.
9. This time they promoted elections and even for first time allowed TV debates. Mousavi (aligning again with Rafsanjani) promised too much change and criticized too much of the incumbent. All the sudden people decided to challenge the system they hated by voting Mousavi (only venue available). Millions flooded the streets in one week before election.
10. The turn out was massive, even surprising master vote riggers. Mousavi was told on Jun 12 that he had won the election by 70% by judging original trend. He called for celebration. But something changed with direction from Khamenei, and Ahmadi Nejad was declared winner of the election by 62% in the evening of the election day.
11. Everybody knows what happened next day when people flooded the streets by millions to protest against massive fraud.
12. Mousavi, a 9 years Prime Minister under Khamenei’s presidency and Khomeini’s supreme leadership and being collectively responsible for thousands of summary executions and human right abuses became the accidental leader of a movement he truly could not understand and therefore was unable of leading.

Alan Parsi of CA 12:46AM July 15, 2009

... At
http://www.ethiopianreview.com/articles/14225
This one analyzes the last two digits in voting results to determine whether they could have occurred by chance (as in a fair election) or whether there is evidence that some human might have invented some of them.

Andrea S. of VA 2:12PM July 14, 2009