Comments on FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Ahmadinejad's Rural Votes

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2009-10-10T08:31:01.522-04:00

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I explored the official data given from votes outs...

2009-06-20T06:19:40.036-04:00

I explored the official data given from votes outside of Iran in http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=98206&sectionid=351020101

The analysis is in: http://mlt-thinks.blogspot.com/

I can not draw any clear conclusions, but the data there is much more heterogeneous than the data Nate looked at.

@Beano: I was NOT defending or excusing the potty-...

2009-06-18T22:37:25.981-04:00

@Beano:
I was NOT defending or excusing the potty-mouthed posts of "Hard". I twice called them disgusting. I was just trying to point out that they might not have been what they seemed at first blush. I am actually more upset by his posts than I would be if they were coming from some ignorant bigot, since I suspect he is trying to parody and insult such bigots. That does not excuse the foul nature of his posts.

Got that?

Vote counts seem to be unusual. What's the reason?...

2009-06-18T16:04:03.060-04:00

Vote counts seem to be unusual. What's the reason???? Seems to me like Del Dover has the best take on it I've seen yet - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5doiiGgcGGM

Sorry but that analysis doesn't work because of tw...

2009-06-18T08:24:04.766-04:00

Sorry but that analysis doesn't work because of two things:

1- there was a boycott and a general feeling of apathy in 2005, many reformists didn't vote.

2- accusations of vote fraud in the first round in favor of ahmadinejad were thrown around, something I'm inclined to believe.

Hey Nate, Have you seen this photo essay (w/audio...

2009-06-18T05:00:37.214-04:00

Hey Nate,

Have you seen this photo essay (w/audio commentary) from the New Yorker covering one of Aahmadinejad's visits to Tabriz (Mousavi's "home town") in April.
It's about 2 minutes long. Well worth the time to give a bit of color to the rural discussion.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/multimedia/2009/04/13/090413_audioslideshow_ahmadinejad

It reminds me of how quick we are to jump to conclusions based on seeing the world through our local lenses.

Cheers,
Diesel

This is so sad. Such a pathetic excuse for a democ...

2009-06-18T03:19:57.231-04:00

This is so sad. Such a pathetic excuse for a democracy. It's almost insulting that Iran puts up such a weak facade. When only 39% of your population has faith in the validity of elections, i would venture to say a democracy isn't even possible. It's at least good to see that the people of Iran are making some ruckus over a clearly fradulant result.

A curious thing on the rural votes issue - I did a...

2009-06-18T02:33:08.696-04:00

A curious thing on the rural votes issue - I did a look at the change in turnout across Iran between this election, and the 2005 first round election. I think I anticipated some sort of rural voting turnout gain, or something.

Actually, there seemed to be a fairly constant increase in turnout between 2005 and 2009 across all rural/urban regions. I'm not sure how to interpret this?

Here is some interesting commentary by a reporter ...

2009-06-18T01:11:48.650-04:00

Here is some interesting commentary by a reporter in Tehran, how he went searching for Ahmadinejad voters on election day.

http://tehranbureau.com/2009/06/13/who-voted-for-ahmadinejad/

@Shaahin: I was thinking about what you said about...

2009-06-17T21:53:05.688-04:00

@Shaahin: I was thinking about what you said about Ahmadinejad being more or less unaccessible to the rural provinces in 2005, but not being an Iranian, it is harder to assess. So, thanks for the comment.

I would like to know what percentage of Karroubi's vote went to each candidate in rural areas vs. urban areas. Not that that proves anything either, but it would support the switching the Karroubi vote over to Ahmadinajad in rural areas where vote stealing would be easier hypothesis.

Pot Kettle Black: I deliberately left out Salt Lak...

2009-06-17T21:04:31.883-04:00

Pot Kettle Black: I deliberately left out Salt Lake City, which is 50% non-Mormon, and fairly liberal. It's the suburbs that are extremely Mormon-conservative, especially Provo, home of BYU. Colorado Springs, which is very religious and conservative even in the city proper, is a somewhat better analogy for Qom.

Make your life more pleasant by blocking trolls li...

2009-06-17T20:51:50.376-04:00

Make your life more pleasant by blocking trolls like PeteKent and BeanoCook.

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I don't know if someone already mentioned this or ...

2009-06-17T20:20:49.857-04:00

I don't know if someone already mentioned this or not, but a factor that might be relevant is that allegedly a good chunk of the conservative vote consists of people who consider it their religious duty to always vote and support their candidate. Whereas the opposition participation is supposedly shaky and circumstantial. So the fact that Ahmadinejad did well in Urban areas in 05 might be the result of less of participation on the part of the opposition. It might be helpful if participation in Rural and Urban areas in 05 and 09 are also compared.

I reiterate: Definition of a TROLL: A person who ...

2009-06-17T20:10:35.463-04:00

I reiterate:

Definition of a TROLL: A person who makes statements designed to be inflamatory in order to elicit a response, said response then serving as a platform to make further inflamatory statements. And the purpose of all this is to disrupt the flow of meaningful on-topic discussion.

Ergo, if you respond to a TROLL you've just been sucked into their plot.

It is far better to just ignore their comments. Think of it as stepping over horse dung after a parade passes by.

HARD is a liberal, I guarantee. Pathetic that s...

2009-06-17T20:01:38.161-04:00

HARD is a liberal, I guarantee.

Pathetic that some people try to excuse his incredibly hateful, racist witting as some form of a parody of the GOP.

Funny, but the only people in America saying such thing are liberals when they are only portraying a "parody".

The left is the place where pure hatred is accepted. It is like a support group that makes racial stereotyping and hate acceptable.

End Affirmative Action now, the only racist policy in America.

" Al Gore performed worse in Tennessee than he did...

2009-06-17T19:29:57.694-04:00

" Al Gore performed worse in Tennessee than he did in the rest of the country, even though it was his home state. That fact alone doesn't discredit the overall result."

The same guy rigged both elections?

Nate, keep up the work. But may I ask you to edit ...

2009-06-17T19:22:43.556-04:00

Nate, keep up the work. But may I ask you to edit your original post ot reflect some useful comments people leave here?

One needs some Iranian history/politics to interpret these data. Ok, guys, here is what happened. In 2005, Ahmadinejad was a widely unknown candidate. Most people had no idea who he was. He used to be the mayor of Tehran and Ardabil before he ran for presidency. Therefore, he was not known to most people except for people in Tehran and Ardabil. People in rural areas definitely had no idea who he was. According to the data, he got most of his votes in the first round from Tehran and other central privinces. As said, he was the mayor of Tehran, and a native of Semnan, so his votes there were no surprise. Karroubi (a Lur) carried Luristan and western/south-western provinces, Mehralizade (an Azeri) carried north western (Azeri) provinces. The total votes of the first five candidates were so close to each other that a few votes would have let Karroubi to the second round (instead of Ahmadinejad). In fact no one thought that Ahmadinejad was ever going to run for the run-off (some say there was some rigging here too).

But what happened in the second round? In the second round, many people thought that neither of the two candidates (Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad) are worth voting for. However, many people were panicked. Rafsanjani was an unpopular and sometimes hated figure, which made many people vote for Ahmadinejad. On the other hand, intellectuals and the middle class were scared of Ahmadinejad and his views, so they voted for Rafsanjani. Moreover, Ahmadinejad, a conservative, attracted most conservative votes of the first round, plus most of Karroubi's votes because some of Karroubi's slogans (handouts for the poor) were similar to those of Ahmadinejad.

In 2009, the situation was completely different. Ahmadinejad was no more an unknown mayor, he was the incumbent. People in most big cities (the middle class) now hated him, including Tehran, Ghom, and Isfahan, where people had voted for him in 2005. However, his handouts should have bought him many votes in poorer/rural areas.

One more thing (this one I'm more or less guessing): In 2005 Ahmadinejad must have got some votes from Ghom because people viewed him as a religious and traditionally-minded person (Ghom's atmosphere is very religious and traditional). However, during the past four years it turned out that he is not a big fan of clerics except for a fundamentalist minority of them who he supported. Thus, I think, he should have lost many votes from Ghom, especially given that Mousavi was heavily supported by some major clerics from Ghom.

That's kind of a summary of what happened.

The key line in those posts is the following: "Gla...

2009-06-17T19:15:35.351-04:00

The key line in those posts is the following:
"Glad I'm with the GOP! We're white, straight, and God-fearin'!!"
It was the only line not containing an epithet. And as another poster noted, it goes against the tone of the rest of his post. That's why I thinik it was a disgusting attempt at parody.

@harmlesstree: Regarding the postings of one "Hard...

2009-06-17T19:09:50.460-04:00

@harmlesstree:
Regarding the postings of one "Hard": I found them disgusting. But I have to disagree with you about his being part of the GOP. I found his epithet-laden rants to be so extreme as to be laughable, and I have no doubt: he is portraying himself as an extreme parody of a conservative wingnut. Think Stephen Colbert with an uncontrollable case of potty-mouth. I just hope this comparison isn't insulting to Mr. Colbert.

Trying to statistically analize a clearly-rigged e...

2009-06-17T19:04:07.608-04:00

Trying to statistically analize a clearly-rigged election is more than just funny. I find it somewhat creepy and bizarre. You are picking apart the election "returns" like you were combing through the Cuyahoga County, Ohio results from the 2004 Presidential election.

Iran is a theocratic dictatorship, not a democratic republic... :-)

Here's an interesting thought: What if they simpl...

2009-06-17T18:57:36.161-04:00

Here's an interesting thought: What if they simply switched the top 2 vote count? It'll explain how thus far the votes have stood up against statistical tools against fraud.

Pragmatus: it was more or less a spelling mistake...

2009-06-17T18:38:58.551-04:00

Pragmatus: it was more or less a spelling mistake. Lighten up!

Simper Fi!

petekent01 (on twitter)

Here is a report authored by someone who has actua...

2009-06-17T18:33:44.006-04:00

Here is a report authored by someone who has actually studied people in the Iranian rural villages.

http://tehranbureau.com/2009/06/17/irans-rural-vote-and-election-fraud/

Off-topic... Some moderation on this board is needed to get rid of off-topic and derogatory posting. Please remember people, Iranians and other foreigners are reading this site too, and the posts by the Obama haters above, give them the impression that GOP voters are ignorant bigots.

Is this the image you want to spread?

"And you don't have to be grouped with "supporters...

2009-06-17T18:22:12.467-04:00

"And you don't have to be grouped with "supporters of MA" to recognize that some skepticism is warranted."

I certainly agree with you, Zach, that it's far from proven that there was vote fakery. Again, I think the best way to pin it down further is investigating two questions:

1) Was there an urban/rural correlation in the pre-election polls?

2) Are there other factors that showed correlation in the 2005 election which show no correlation now?

If there was no urban/rural correlation in the pre-election polls, or if most factors show the same correlation to voting that they did in 2005, it certainly seems reasonable to suggest that the lack of urbanization correlation is simply a fluke/outcome of circumstances.

On the other hand, if most factors that showed some correlation in 2005 show equally little correlation today, it's very unlikely that circumstances could have led to ALL the factors being nullified.

@Rasmus: your claim that the reported vote totals...

2009-06-17T17:48:59.602-04:00

@Rasmus: your claim that the reported vote totals are consistent with Benford's Law is false. See the raw numbers and the statistical analysis towards the end of the comments on the "If He Did It" thread. Ahmedinejad's numbers are only borderline suspicious, but the numbers for Korroubi (the candidate who ran strongly last time but supposedly could not even break out of single digits in his hometown where his political machine is based) give chi-square 28.1 (expected value 8) for a p-value around 0.0006