Mebane: Signs of Fraud on Iran Presidential Election

A report by the Michigan Professor

Walter R. Mebane Jr, the election forensics expert who continues to wade through the official vote count from the Iranian elections has his starkest conclusion yet: that there was "extensive ballot box stuffing on Ahmadinejad's behalf."

The title of report is "Note on the presidential election in Iran" and you can find it in 27 pages here.

Mebane, a professor of political science and statistics in the University of Michigan, then goes further, suggesting that "[w]ithout the ballot-box stuffing fraud ... the election outcome should have been at least a runoff between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi." In his latest update on a report on the Iranian election Mebane added"There are suspicious elements here, but there's no solid evidence of fraud."

Mebane concludes that, "Tests such as those considered in this paper can in general only identify places where there may be problems with the votes. In some places the suggestions may be extremely strong (e.g., for recent Russian elections, see Mebane and Kalinin 2009). In general the tests’ best use is for screening election results, not confirming or refuting claims of fraud. A significant finding should prompt investigations using administrative records, witness testimony and other facts to try to determine what happened."

Mebane most striking conclusion is: "The problem with the 2009 Iranian election is that the serious questions that have been raised are unlikely to receive satisfactory answers. Transparency is utterly lacking in this case. There is little reason to believe the official results announced in that election accurately reflect the intentions of the voters who went to the polls."

Find the original report@University of Michigan

Survey of official Iran results casts serious doubt on victory claims

a report by Chatham House
21 June 2009
Authors:
Ali Ansari, Daniel Berman and Thomas Rintoul,

A survey of Iran's election results, published today by Chatham House and the University of St Andrews, raises serious questions about the plausibility of the claimed victory and demonstrates irregularities in the official results.

According to this report:
Even the official statistics - obtained from the Ministry of the Interior - indicate that:

*
votes cast exceeded the number of eligible voters in two provinces
*
claims that Ahmadinejad swept the board in rural provinces flies in the face of previous results

The plausibility of Mr Ahmadinejad's claimed victory is called into question by figures that show that in several provinces he would have had to attract the votes of all new voters, all the votes of his former centrist opponent, and up to 44% of those who voted for reformist candidates in 2005.

Irregularities are found in conservative Mazandaran and Yazd provinces where votes cast exceeded the number of eligible voters.

Professor Ali Ansari said: 'The analysis shows that the scale of the swing to Ahmadinejad would have had to have been extraordinary to achieve the stated result'.

Thomas Rintoul said: 'The claimed results in minority provinces are particularity extreme, the numbers from Ilam, Lorestan and Hormozegan almost defy belief".

Read paper @ Chatham House

Download the report here