Statistical Suspicions In Iran's Election

hoytak writes "An expert in electoral fraud, professor Walter Melbane, has released a detailed analysis (PDF) of available data in Iran's controversial election (summary here). While he did not find significant indications of fraud, he does note that all the deviations from the predicted model are in Ahmadinejad's favor: 'In general, combining the 2005 and 2009 data conveys the impression that a substantial core of the 2009 results reflected natural political process... [These] stand in contrast to the unusual pattern in which all of the notable discrepancies between the support Ahmadinejad actually received and the support the model predicts are always negative. This pattern needs to be explained before one can have confidence that natural election processes were not supplemented with artificial manipulations.'" In related news, EsonLinji notes reports in the Seattle PI and other sources that the US State Department has asked Twitter to delay system maintenance to prevent cutting off Iranians who have been relying on the service during the post-election crisis. And if you would like to help ease the communication crunch, reader RCulpepper tips a blog post detailing how to set up a proxy server for users with Iranian IP addresses.

Comments

Solution

[Parthian]

Regime Change!

Re:Israeli Effort to Destabilize Iran Via Twitter

[spacefiddle]

(The Independent paper in the UK gave a full page interview to one of Mousavi's supporters who, when you managed to overlook the bias, was praising her fellows for managing to have set a bus on fire and pretty much said that it didn't matter whether Ahmadinejad got more votes because he shouldn't be President and Mousavi should).

I respectfully submit that this is the bias - one we've seen in America for years, that comedians have even based routines around. Repeatedly. It is the choice of spokesperson, made by the media, that is the bias.

Come on, THINK a minute! Do you really think this bus-burning vote-ignoring supporter is the only person they spoke to that day? The reporter should be fired, if they just took the words of the first person who ran up screaming to them as The News. No. They took many statements, spoke to many people, and the reporter and editor chose what to present. Simple as that.

Consider also the bet-hedging of "reporting that Ahmadinejad won." What they really reported, you'll notice, is "official results." You know, the ones endorsed by the government. Because the wire can't stand to stay silent for 5 seconds until it actually knows more, anyway; and reports, at any given instant, as if right now is the absolute truth of the matter. Reuters' story was my favorite: Official results are in, the incumbent won, the losers are protesting, the UN calls for the will of the people to be respected. Taken together, it sounds like an endorsement of the official results, doesn't it? When you say "the winner" and "the loser," you are stating facts. You are reinforcing that perception. Makes the opposition sound like "we lost, let's riot" - as your bus-burning spokesperson further reinforces.

"It was crazy as hell!" makes better camera time for the spectacle then "Well, I believe the geopolitical ramifications of this are... hey, where's the cameraman going? Burning, you say?"

IMHO, i think there's a Cheney-like extreme right group that would prefer Mousavi to have lost. An uncooperative, defiant Iran would be easier to demonize.