IRAN: Independent study finds irregularities in election results

Chatham House, a British think tank, has published a study indicating irregularities in the disputed June 12 election.

The country’s highest electoral authority, the Guardian Council, acknowledged today that "votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of people eligible to cast ballots in those areas," state-owned Press TV reported. But a spokesman for the council maintains that the votes were not enough to reverse the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Chatham House researchers compared the official provincial returns from 2009 and 2005 against the 2006 census published by the official Statistical Center of Iran. They found:

• In two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of
more than 100% was recorded.

• At a provincial level, there is no correlation between the increased
turnout and the swing to Ahmadinejad. This challenges the notion that
Ahmadinejad’s victory was due to the massive participation of a
previously silent conservative majority.

• In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that
Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, all former
centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former
Reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two
groups.

• In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and
Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas.
That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claim
that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces
flies in the face of these trends.

Download the study from Chatham House.

-- Alexandra Zavis in Los Angeles 

Comments

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[mike]

the study compares the first round in 2005 with the first, and if the dictatorship has their way only, round in 2009. Comparison are complicated but the people of Iran deserve a vote they can have confidence in. I don't see how any reasonable person can believe they've gotten it.

[phorum017]

This study compare the last election with the first round of 2005, where Ahmadinejad took 19.48% of the votes.
He later got 61.69% in the second round, a score similar to 2009.

This seems not to be very honest.