Report on the Iranian presidential election 2009 

The political affiliation of the electorate reflects the fact the conservative-reformist divide was never clearly defined. Iran's politics is not based on tribalistic loyalties seen in political parties in the West - it is very fluid and based on personality. Anyway, you are free to disagree with my interpretation about the politics. What you can't shirk away from is the raw data. Thanks for reading.

The "Political Affiliation of the Electorate" section is dubious at best. There is obvious bias in both the CH report and this report. Can someone, please, use critical evaluation without being tainted by ideology? Perhaps then we will discover the truth.

The issue of vacationing is real. On weekends, and the election was held on a Friday, people do travel to the North for a break. In the 2005 election, Mazandaran had one of the highest turnouts (67%) because of this. Also there are several naval bases on the Caspian. The point is that there is not a universal swing to Mr Ahmadinejad in every province - rather there are regional swings.

Irregularities and Anomalies: "In the case of Mazandaran, we should not be surprised to observe that the turnout has exceeded the number of eligible voters because in the summertime many Iranians shelter from the heat of big cities in the cool of the Caspian littoral region [...]" I cannot take this explanation seriously. If you want to make this argument, provides numbers for turnout in 2006, the increased number in 2009, and argue that the difference is plausibly main up by "vacationers". The numbers are 67 and 100%, respectively. That's about 1 million people (all figures from CH). The point about turnout is that the lack of a uniform swing to Ahmadinejad cannot support the potential argument that he won because of a previously silent majority. It is not a positive argument for fraud, it is a counter-argument. If you are not defending the original argument, you may ignore it. If you are defending the original argument, than you should lay out your claims precisely, but merely attacking the counter-argument, out of context, as "specious" does not help you. Political Affiliation of the Electorate: This entire section is speculative and unsupported by evidence. Source of Ahmadinejad Votes: You cannot reliably cite a poll in which a majority of respondents either refused to answer the question or declined to support any of the listed candidates (Terror Free Tomorrow). Even if you wanted to go down that road, that poll shows Ahmadinejad's confirmable support capped at 33%. People have formed opinions, positive or negative, about him over the last 4 years that are unlikely to change in the next month. Mousavi, however, was an unknown entity and the poll was taken prior to any debates, campaigning or general political activity. Moreover, nothing in that poll shows any indication of positive support for incumbency (economic approval, policy questions, etc.). All that aside, you still do not answer the challenge: where, on a broad scale, did his votes come from? The 10 million that didn't vote last time, the 6 million that voted for Rafsanjani, or the 10 million that voted for a reformist candidate? Make your claims and support them with evidence. Nothing you say makes the Lorestan results seem any less ridiculous. Popularity of Ahmadinejad Among Rural Voters: Again, no real evidence is presented. Ethnic and Regional Varriations in the Results: Not only do I fail to detect any kind of argument here, but I become more convinced after reading this section that the election results were fraudulent. It'd also be nice if you actually sourced your data. Statistical data: None of this was argued in CH. Logically, rebutting any statistical arugment for fraud is not proof of the absence of fraud. Conclusions: Just nutty. In order to actually support these claims, you need to provide your own evidence and arguments in a systematic and comprehensive manner. Again, as a matter of logic, you cannot demonstrate validity by attacking anyone else's arguments for fraud. There are many more arguments that this was fraudulent, but it would be a waste of time to go through them. I hear they're purging the present faculty at the University of Tehran. Hope this helps you find a job there, as this evidently would not pass muster anywhere else.

Spot on