The Ayatollah's Flawed Logic

6.19.2009

The Ayatollah's Flawed Logic

by Nate Silver @ 11:34 AM

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I don't know how many people caught this expression of logic from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in his call for an end to the protests over the electoral outcome in Iran. Asreported by the BBC:

Responding to allegations of electoral fraud, the ayatollah insisted the Islamic Republic would not cheat.

"There is 11 million votes difference," the ayatollah said. "How one can rig 11 million votes?"

This particular argument is not unique to the Ayatollah. It has also been used by some Western observers such as Flynt Leverett (emphasis mine):

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Still many people, including in Washington, have expressed skepticism as to the validity of the results.

Leverett: I am a little surprised by the margin, too. But that makes me more comfortable about the overall validity of the election. Look at the irregularities Mousavi is citing now: that they ran out of ballot paper in some polling precincts, that they did not keep some polls open long enough. There is no way such things could change the overall outcome which is clearly in favor of Ahmadinejad. If you compare this to the flaws of the presidential election in Florida in 2000, it seems very insignificant.

Leverett and Ayatollah are arguing from an ironically Western conception of how to rig an election. In the United States, it is actually rather difficult to steal an election: because of our federalist system, elections are monitored and voting totals are reported by hundreds or thousands of individual officials at the state, county, and precinct levels. There is therefore a rather substantial marginal cost to stealing additional votes: you have to recruit some number of additional people into the conspiracy, and hope they don't rat you out or leave some kind of paper trail that makes obvious your intention. It is probably not that difficult to find a few corrupt (but competent) stooges who will help you out, but for each additional vote that you want to steal, you have to go lower down the food pyramid, soliciting the help of people who are less loyal and might undermine your plan.

But this is simply not the case in Iran. All votes are counted are reported by the Interior Ministry. There is no other source of information. There are no election monitors. Nor does the fraud alleged involve any sort of physical process (e.g. stuffing ballot boxes). It is simply a matter of changing numbers on a spreadsheet. Under these conditions, it is essentially no more difficult to steal a thousand votes than one, a million than a thousand, or 11 million than one million.

The only constraints, rather, are perceptual: certain vote totals might be more or less likely to trigger protests and unrest. It is probably easy to identify those voting margins that aremost likely to trigger unrest: one would be to claim to have won the election (or secured enough votes to avoid a run-off) by exactly one vote; the other would be to claim to have won the election with 100 percent of the vote. In the former case, you would almost certainly wind up being subject to a recount, and any one report of irregularities could undermine your claim. In the latter, your claim would a laughable on its face, and every single Iranian who had voted against you would know that his vote had been stolen and would take to the streets.

It is less clear the margin of victory that minimizes the risk of unrest. But one can posit a curve that looks something like this:



I'd imagine there's a fairly broad sweet spot somewhere between about 55 percent of the vote and 75. Totals below 55 percent might trigger piecemeal scrutiny of irregularities and/or otherwise embolden your opponents, either of which could ultimately cost you the "victory". A claim to having won more than 75 percent of the vote would stretch credibility in an ethnically diverse country where there is clearly a lot of political disagreement; you'd have gotten too greedy. Ahmadinejad's claim to have won 63 percent of the vote falls somewhere in this sweet spot. That doesn't mean he stole the election -- but it also doesn't mean that he didn't.

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Iranian Leadership Split On Response

by Renard Sexton @ 5:58 AM

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In the wake of the contested election, the top leadership of the Iranian regime has been harshly criticized, both inside and outside the country. Portrayed in many cases as the decayed and out-of-touch remnants of the 1979 revolution, they have been accused of collectively posturing to maintain power, and deny a democratic win for reformers.

The truth is actually much more complex. Rather than a unified block, the various chief political actors in Iran have had shifiting positions in response to the election and the accompanying public unrest. While the official message coming from the top has been consistent, with the Supreme Leader continuing to urge restraint and an acceptance of the official results, behind the scenes, chaos reigns.

The following table summarizes the positions of four main institutions. While there are several addition advisory bodies, such as the "Discernment and Expediancy Council" and the Iranian Judiciary, these four institutions have taken public action.

In theory, the word of the Supreme Leader is final on issues such as these, provided that the Constitution of Iran is obeyed, and the Assembly of Experts do not take action to impeach/dismiss the Leader - something they have never done. However, the Guardian Council, which plays a significant role in the electoral process, has accepted challenges to the results by all three candidates, undermining Khameni's proclamation of Ahmadinejad's victory.

At the same time, Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former two-term President and rival of Ahmadinejad, has publicly declared his belief that Mousavi is the true winner, and that significant fraud was perpetrated by the Ahmadinejad camp. As Chairman of the Assembly, Rafsanjani has used his mandate of "supervision of the Supreme Leader" to challenge the official declaration.

Finally, the Majlis - the Iranian Parliament - has taken issue with the harsh treatment of demonstrators by authorities in the days after the election. While most of the chamber issued their congratulations to the incumbent immediately after the vote totals were released, many have since pulled back. While the least influential of the institutions, the Majlis has supported the opposition protests and calls for democratic redress more directly than any other.

In summary, the key question will be if the Supreme Leader can regain order among the top leaders before the political dialogue shifts towards a serious challenge to the system. If the protests can be stopped, and Ahmadinejad's victory is seen as inevitable, many political leaders who would prefer to see reform will pull back from their opposition in order to protect themselves from retribution. If, however, public outcry and internal fighting in the regime continues following today's proclamation, some change in the leadership, though likely minor at first, may be on the horizon.