Washington Post: Poll Shows Ahmadenijad Most Likely Won. Juan Cole and Jon Cohen See It Differently

 I'd hate to use such a raving pejorative as duplicitous against information in an article by the fact checked (as they tell us) mainstream press, as is presented in a Washington Post article on the recent election in Iran by Ken Ballen and Patick Doherty, but Juan Cole, a Middle East expert that I trust quite a bit seems to punch holes in their report that polling shows Iran really did vote for Ahmadinejad.

The evidence is, in fact contained within their own polling data according to the Middle East expert Mr. Cole.

Which then begs the question of why Mssrs Ballen and Doherty wrote the Washington Post article -- besides the money (and well, yes, we do know that times are tough all over especially for non profits).

The writesr intone (in what I now realize is an "op ed" according to another WP piece they do link to from the bottom of that report) "The Iranian People Speak " that last month Ahmadinejad enjoyed a 2 to one lead over Mousavi.  But they also admit that "almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided". 

Whoa!  Hold up there Trigger!   Those numbers burn the eyes if you stop and evaluate them.  In fact, the result of crunching them a little makes Bollan and Doherty start to look a little shifty eyed since the terms they used mask Ahmadinejad's problems with Iranian voters so well.

Two to one means 2/3rds of those making a choice over a month before the election chose Ahmadinejad. But nearly a third couldn't make up their minds.   So the president's support base suddenly lowers to  2/3rds of 2/3rds.  If I remember my elementary school fractions that works out to 4/9s, or less than 1/2 of Iranians were supporting Ahmadinejad a month before the election.  Now Ahmadinejad being a known entity or  a "known known" in Rumsfeldese could easily have firmed up his support a month before the election, and it doesn't look very pretty if that is all he was getting.

Jon Cohen at the Post in "About Those Iran Polls " writes:

"...the poll was conducted from May 11 to 20, well before the spike in support for Mousavi his supporters claim."

Cohen also notes that one should be wary of using data from so far before the election

Cohen also links to  pre-election analysis at Nate Silver's 538' by Robert Sexton "Polling and Voting in Iran's Friday Election" that showed that Mousavi had a good chance of getting to a second round and then winning that.  

And of course the poll report at '538' also shows me that I had forgotten the other two candidates.  That realization reduces Ahmadinejad's two to one lead on Mousavi to an even weaker standing.   Too bad Ballen and Doherty didn't put in actual numbers, but then having an Op Ed fall apart before being published could make for a bad business decision by the Post and they did link to the rebuttal on their own pages. 

The first rebuttal I read though was Juan Cole's Informed Comment blog "Terror Free Tomorrow Poll Did not Predict Ahmadinejad Win ".

Mr. Cole also politely shows that even Ken Ballen expressed doubt about Ahmadinejad's election based on his poll and offers other important insights.  No registration required and like most blogs the embedded ads steal less of your resources than those of mainstream news media.

Cole is always a valuable resource for news and especially analysis on any Middle East events or controversies.  

Other thoughts:

I believe that Nate Silver has said since the election that he thinks Ahmadinejad did win.  Note the article I link to above at Silver's '538' was by Robert Sexton, not Silver himself.  

Okay scratch that above.  What Nate Silver is saying is that he doesn't think that a consistent vote spread over the hours of counting is a sign of a stolen election.  I hate to say this, but it still makes me suspicious in and of itself, but I'm willing to be superceded by Mr. Silver, especially now with the other numerical evidence that is even more suspicious.

I also heard that one analysis says that Ahmadinejad's vote fixers actually took the votes that the president needed for re-election from the third and fourth placing candidates.  This would get the incumbent the win in the first round  that he  felt he needed.

A look at the latest poll before the election  (June 5) shows this is not an implausible scenario: Ahmadenijad with 40.8% support, Karrubi had 8.1%, Mousavi had attracted 36.7%, and Rezai 15.1%.  So Ahmadenijad did not have first round victory wrapped up a week before the election.  

I can't find the actual numbers the two lesser candidates received or were assigned after the election, but Z Net "Protests in Iran " reports that Ahmadinejad received c. 63% while Mousavi got about 34%, showing the two front runners suddenly sucking the air out of the election.  The high percentage of turnout and Ahmadinejad's amazing surge show that this can't be explained by people just staying home because their favorite, whether Rezai or Karrubi, was not likely to win. In fact, either a great panic developed in most of the lesser candidates' supporters who fled to the polls in fear of Mousavi and voted for Ahmadinejad to save them, or this election was definitely stolen.

And, of course, this scenario does not adequately deal with the fact that 40 million (number of ballots Khamenei mentioned in his Friday sermon) hand written ballots were supposedly counted within a few hours.

PS:  I do not mean any disparagement of Iran for suggesting their election was stolen.  After all the US had one stolen in 2000 and possibly in 2004.  The Iranian people are doing more than my fellow citizens did at those times to try to get a new vote or even a proper recount than we did. And look at all the damage that the vote theif did to our country and to the world in the meantime (I don't mean to put any pressure on anyone as to whether to join the protests or not.  After the above two American elections none of my fellow citizens here has the right to tell Iranians what to do at this time.)

tags: iran  iran election  vote irregularities  iran protests  stolen election  nate silver  washington post  jon cohen  

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