Nate Silver chimes in on the Iranian elections, sort of.

[homasse]

Statistical Report Purporting to Show Rigged Iranian Election Is FlawedLike most Americans, there are few things I would like to see more than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hateful President, to be voted out of office. Elections in thuggish, authoritarian states like Iran need be treated with the utmost skepticism and scrutiny. I can't say I have any

Comments

2 Questions I'm pondering

[leprofessional]

Re rigging of election

1- Does anyone know any info about terror free tomorrow (the organization) what their political leanings are? In a document they released polling Iranians they said a large majority were going to vote for Ahmadinjad.

2- Does anyone have any good analysis as to motives in possibly rigging an election when the candidates could have been not approved? (albeit with some difficulty, but much less so than rigging an entire election) From Juan Cole, to Andrew Sullivan to Masoud Behnoud and other Iranian analysts the starting point seems to be that the election is rigged without any analysis of the circumstances prior.

I think given the anomalies, there is for sure something wrong with the election... but I don't think it's as simple as "o hai goiz, let's make up numbahs" unless someone made a really really really stupid call. Am I giving them too much credit?

Re: 2 Questions I'm pondering

[leprofessional]

http://livestation.com/channels/3

AN's live press conference on AlJazeera, the reporters are kissing his ass... he says that the "disturbances" are being caused by sore grapes and foreign nations.

Re: 2 Questions I'm pondering

[cindel]

Did you hear what he said? He avoid the questions from CNN about the reformers being arrested and the people are being fined for violating traffic rules. WTF?!

Re: 2 Questions I'm pondering

[leprofessional]

tbh I LOLed.

My new quote de jour.

Re: 2 Questions I'm pondering

[pumpkinwaltz]

For #2, perhaps they approved them just so that the public would think that they actually had a choice in the matter? But considering how unconvincingly it was rigged in the first place, maybe not.

My mom thinks the rigging happened as a last-minute measure, once they realized Mousavi would win for sure, but that can't be true because it was clear for weeks before that he would elected (had there been no rigging). My dad thinks (as usual) that the Americans are behind this, lol.