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

[shizumaslover]

Posted by Darius in the comments at the source:

I'm sitting in my grandparents' house in Tehran right now and I'm hearing mini-explosions, there's helicopters flying around, it smells like smoke, and it took fifteen minutes for this website to load because they've slowed down the internet so much here. On top of that they've basically blocked parts of Iran from the international phone network so I can't even call my mother. 80% of the Iranian people did not enthusiastically turn out in order to re-elect someone who has ruined this country both economically and culturally. The Iranian people know that this election was rigged. How could it have been possible for Mousavi to lose Tabriz when he is from Iranian Azerbaijan and Ahmadinejad has abysmal approval ratings amongst Turkic speaking Iranians? On top of that, I voted in this sham election. Do you know that all votes in Iran are cast on paper and that paper needs to be counted by HAND because you have to write in the code and name of the candidate you are voting for? Mousavi only claimed victory two hours into the vote because his campaign found out that the Interior Ministry was going to go forward and claim that it was extremely likely that Ahmadinejad was going to win, 2 hours into the balloting. You tell me, how do you even count 5.5 million paper ballots only two hours after the polls close? In Tehran it is also policy that the ballot boxes need to be transported to the Interior Ministry before they can even be opened, subtracting even more time from the 2 hours. Facebook does not work, Youtube does not work, basically all communications are down. You tell me sir, if they did not rig the elections where are all the people who supported Ahmadinejad? Why aren't they celebrating? Why is the mood in Tehran, even southern Tehran so gloomy? Why is the government so scared? When looking at these basic facts you can come to the conclusion far more easily than using some stupid statistical analysis that gives legitimacy to a government which for 30 years has just further consolidated its power.

All of the testimonials coming out of this are breaking my heart and filling me with rage. They alone are enough to prove some dirty shit has gone down.

[hinoema]

God, that's so tragic. I hope something can be done by and for these people.

[leelakin]

Holy shit. @_@ It's awesome that he managed to get a comment out.