mom person
06-25-2009, 06:12 AM
Crunching the numbers
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
A few days ago, just as the "color" movement's ferocious struggle to overturn the results of the 10th Iranian presidential elections was fading, it received a new lease of life via the publication of a British study [1] that casts serious doubt on the official results that saw President Mahmud Ahmadinejad re-elected.
"Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election" was published by Chatham House and the Institute of Iranian Studies, University of St Andrews, and edited by Iranian political scientist Professor Ali Ansari, director, Institute of Iranian Studies.
The report has received a lavish reception in the Western media as a "sweeping condemnation" of the June 12 election results, by virtue of repeatedly using such terms as "implausible" and "highly doubtful" in reference to aspects of the returned numbers from the nearly 40 million votes that were cast.
The report identifies the "massive increase from 2005" as one of a "number of aspects" of the election as being "problematic". The authors question that the incumbent president could win 7 million more votes than he received the last time. Yet they overlook that his votes were extremely close to his voting percentage in 2005. One of the problems could be that the main author has no background in quantitative analysis as he is a qualitative political scientist. Compare this with another political scientist, US statistician Professor Walter Mebane, a leading expert on election fraud, who has made a similar statistical analysis of the Iranian election. He concluded that there is "no solid evidence of fraud". Another US statistic guru, Nate Silver, has concluded that the voting result was "valid based on statistical analysis".
According to Mebane, who compared 366 district results with those for the 2005 elections, the "substantial core" of posted results are in line with the basic statistical trends. One of Mebane's conclusions is that "Ahmadinejad tended to do worst in towns where the turnout surged the most". Ansari reaches the opposite conclusion in making the same comparisons.
Mebane has made the observation that "a model can never prove fraud - it can identify places where there may be fraud". Ansari's report presents his charts and figures as definitive statements on the election result.
This raises questions over the timing of Ansari's report, in light of allegations by Iran of British meddling in the post-election turmoil in Iran sparked by supporters of the losing candidates.
more at link:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF26Ak04.html
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
A few days ago, just as the "color" movement's ferocious struggle to overturn the results of the 10th Iranian presidential elections was fading, it received a new lease of life via the publication of a British study [1] that casts serious doubt on the official results that saw President Mahmud Ahmadinejad re-elected.
"Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election" was published by Chatham House and the Institute of Iranian Studies, University of St Andrews, and edited by Iranian political scientist Professor Ali Ansari, director, Institute of Iranian Studies.
The report has received a lavish reception in the Western media as a "sweeping condemnation" of the June 12 election results, by virtue of repeatedly using such terms as "implausible" and "highly doubtful" in reference to aspects of the returned numbers from the nearly 40 million votes that were cast.
The report identifies the "massive increase from 2005" as one of a "number of aspects" of the election as being "problematic". The authors question that the incumbent president could win 7 million more votes than he received the last time. Yet they overlook that his votes were extremely close to his voting percentage in 2005. One of the problems could be that the main author has no background in quantitative analysis as he is a qualitative political scientist. Compare this with another political scientist, US statistician Professor Walter Mebane, a leading expert on election fraud, who has made a similar statistical analysis of the Iranian election. He concluded that there is "no solid evidence of fraud". Another US statistic guru, Nate Silver, has concluded that the voting result was "valid based on statistical analysis".
According to Mebane, who compared 366 district results with those for the 2005 elections, the "substantial core" of posted results are in line with the basic statistical trends. One of Mebane's conclusions is that "Ahmadinejad tended to do worst in towns where the turnout surged the most". Ansari reaches the opposite conclusion in making the same comparisons.
Mebane has made the observation that "a model can never prove fraud - it can identify places where there may be fraud". Ansari's report presents his charts and figures as definitive statements on the election result.
This raises questions over the timing of Ansari's report, in light of allegations by Iran of British meddling in the post-election turmoil in Iran sparked by supporters of the losing candidates.
more at link:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KF26Ak04.html