Washington Post: The Iran election results may really have reflected the will of the people

[marmar]

The Iranian People Speak

By Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty
Monday, June 15, 2009


The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.

While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.

Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.

The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html

[camera obscura]

1. Juan Cole and Nate Silver have debunked this

http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/terror-free-tomorro-poll-did-not.html
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/did-polling-predict-ahmadinejad-victory.html

[marmar]

2. I think it's just a question of whose debunking is right.

..... So who knows?

[timeforpeace]

9. Well, here's the Washington Post debunking the Washington Post article you posted.

"More to the point, however, the poll that appears in today's op-ed shows a 2 to 1 lead in the thinnest sense: 34 percent of those polled said they'd vote for Ahmadinejad, 14 percent for Mousavi. That leaves 52 percent unaccounted for. In all, 27 percent expressed no opinion in the election, and another 15 percent refused to answer the question at all. Six Eight percent said they'd vote for none of the listed candidates; the rest for minor candidates."

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/behind-the-numbers/2009/06/about_those_iran_polls.html

So, consider it debunked.

[marmar]

11. From a blog post? Umm, okay.

[AlexanderProgressive]

3. Silver's debunking of a graph by the other side wasn't met with cheers around here yesterday

Silver debunked a graph allegedly proving that fraud had been committed:
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/statistical-evidence-does-not-prove.html

But back then, Silver was bad. Today he's good.

[marmar]

5. Perhaps Mousavi really did win, and perhaps not......

..... but I sometimes think emotion suffocates reason. What people really want to be true sometimes just isn't.

[mod mom]

4. UK Telegraph Reporting leaked interior ministry stats say Ahmadinejad came in 3rd:

Iran protest cancelled as leaked election results show Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came third
Iran's reformist presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has called off a major rally to protest last Friday's election results, amid claims police had been cleared to open fire on protesters.

By Colin Freeman
Published: 11:21AM BST 15 Jun 2009

-snip

Mr Mousavi's cancellation of the protest came as sporadic disturbances continued around the Iranian capital, and reports circulated of leaked interior ministry statistics showing him as the clear victor in last Friday's polls.

The statistics, circulated on Iranian blogs and websites, claimed Mr Mousavi had won 19.1 million votes while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won only 5.7 million.

The two other candidates, reformist Mehdi Karoubi and hardliner Mohsen Rezai, won 13.4 million and 3.7 million respectively. The authenticity of the leaked figures could not be confirmed.

-snip

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/5540211/Iran-protest-cancelled-as-leaked-election-results-show-Mahmoud-Amadinejad-came-third.html

[WeDidIt]

6. Their polling data was obtained 3 weeks prior to the election.

The election is only four weeks long.

And Mousavi did not see a surge in people attending his events until the final week.

Where are the trnedlines? Oh yeah, there are none. This was a single poll.

[Sebastian Doyle]

7. "Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund."

I stopped reading right there. I trust NOTHING that comes from inheritance billionaire scum.

[Prometheus Bound]

13. I have to admit that threw me.

I read Juan Cole and how much respect he had for the pollsters and thought they must be the real deal.

Then I read that bit about who funded it. Kind of leaves a bad taste.

[stray cat]

8. If Obama had lost in Chicago would that be suspicious?

Iran didn't even play it smart in their lies. All the candidates but Ahmadinejad got whipped in their own home towns where they are popular?

[HughMoran]

10. Yep, they counted 40 million paper ballots in 3 hours

Something isn't right here...

[villager]

12. Oy, not this again:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=8471872&mesg_id=8471872

[spindrifter]

14. The only things we can say with certainty is that there

cannot be a recount because many, many ballots were destroyed the night they were cast, and the crowds in the streets of Iran seem pretty determined that they want change.