# Was the Iranian election stolen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 21, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518 "2009-06-21T22:55:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![JonathanTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JonathanTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonathanTheRed)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/41 "2009-06-22T20:30:47Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Err…was meant in jest (as noted). I sincerely hope this answer is in jest too. Of course… er, in good humor, anyway. I do tend to avoid NPR, in large part because I do have a thing against state-owned media. But I wasn’t offended or anything. > [@Captain\_Carrot](#): > > So then you shouldn’t believe any claims that come from the Iranian press and broadcast services. In the first place, _there_ is your non sequitur: because I dislike and distrust state-owned media, it follows that any claim in the Iranian press is false? I don’t even make that assertion about NPR. But yes, I would certainly take any claims in the Iranian state-run media with a grain of salt. As a practical matter, I don’t know that I’ve ever actually _seen_ any Iranian state-run media, so disbelieving every claim I’ve seen therein becomes trivial. > [@](#): > > And yet, that is unreasonable. In Iran there is one agency counting votes: the state. Is The State some sort of organism that’s responsible for collecting and tabulating all the votes? Or is what you refer to as “the state” really an organization composed of very many _people_? If the latter, how many of those people would have to be “in the know” in order to effect a conspiracy to rig nationwide election? > [@](#): > > In short, it is equally easy for Ayatollah Khameini’s minions at the Ministry of Elections to give Ahmadinejad 10 million more votes as 10 more. [Cite](http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/ayatollahs-flawed-logic.html). Your cite is itself an unsourced opinion piece, and its inclusion of a completely invented “graph” of protest risk vs. vote tabulation makes me skeptical of its reliability. Regarding Mr. Silver’s claim that “all votes are counted and reported by the Interior Ministry”, is he suggesting that there is no precinct-level or other-than-national subdivision of vote counting? If this is the case, the election was obviously stolen since there would not have been enough time to physically transport all the ballots to the central counting location… but I don’t believe it is. > [@](#): > > That’s both completely false and absurd. If you have more votes than voters, that is completely inconsistent with any outcome of a fair election. That doesn’t take a statistical analysis, it takes comparing one number to another. I’m referring to the sort of “analysis” I saw after the 2004 election where polling results along with Monte Carlo sampling were used to assert that it was unlikely in the extreme that George W. Bush won the election. If such analysis can predict the winner with such reliability that a contrary result is proof of fraud, why bother holding the elections in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/42 "2009-06-22T20:35:20Z")
> [@JonathanTheRed](#): > > I do tend to avoid NPR, in large part because I do have a thing against state-owned media… Is that another jest? NPR isn’t state-owned. Have I been whooshed? ---
**Author:** ![JonathanTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JonathanTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonathanTheRed)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/43 "2009-06-22T20:53:05Z")
> [@RitterSport](#): > > Is that another jest? NPR isn’t state-owned. Have I been whooshed? No, I’m just guilty of oversimplification. Does “state-supported” suit better? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/44 "2009-06-22T20:57:52Z")
You would prefer news controlled by the corporatist vassals of the running-dog jackals of the ruling class? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/45 "2009-06-22T20:58:41Z")
Correct me if I’m wrong here (if you don’t, some 'doper will anyway :p), but I was under the impression that NPR was mainly supported through donations and advertising. My own recollection is that the government (through the CPB) pays something like 3-4% of the running costs for NPR…hardly ‘state supported’, at least as I take that term to mean. And understand, I’m not exactly the biggest NPR fan out there… -XT ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/46 "2009-06-22T21:05:13Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Correct me if I’m wrong here (if you don’t, some 'doper will anyway :p), but I was under the impression that NPR was mainly supported through donations and advertising. My own recollection is that the government (through the CPB) pays something like 3-4% of the running costs for NPR…hardly ‘state supported’, at least as I take that term to mean. And understand, I’m not exactly the biggest NPR fan out there… > > -XT 2% actually. > [@](#): > > According to the 2005 financial statement, NPR makes just over half of its money from the fees and dues it charges member stations to receive programming, although some of this money originated at the CPB itself, in the form of pass-through grants to member stations.[12] About 2% of NPR’s funding comes from bidding on government grants and programs, chiefly the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; the remainder comes from member station dues, foundation grants, and corporate underwriting. Typically, NPR member stations raise funds through on-air pledge drives, corporate underwriting, and grants from state governments, universities, and the CPB itself. > > SOURCE: [NPR - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Public_Radio#Funding) ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/47 "2009-06-22T21:05:49Z")
Understood, that Garrison Keillor guy can get awfully radical sometimes. And don’t get me started on the smut peddled on _Carnal Talk_! ---
**Author:** ![JonathanTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JonathanTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonathanTheRed)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/48 "2009-06-22T21:08:38Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You would prefer news controlled by the corporatist vassals of the running-dog jackals of the ruling class? Actually, I prefer my news from primary sources. Thanks to the Internet, such is finally available. edit: but yes, if my choice were between media controlled by for-profit corporations and media controlled by government, I would not hesitate to prefer the former. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > 2% actually. Another oversimplification. NPR gets a big chunk of its funding (most, I believe) from dues and programming fees paid by its member stations, and those stations themselves are funded to a greater or lesser degree by the CPB. Not that any of this has the least bit to do with whether the election in Iran was fair or fraud 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/49 "2009-06-22T21:26:03Z")
> [@JonathanTheRed](#): > > Another oversimplification. NPR gets a big chunk of its funding (most, I believe) from dues and programming fees paid by its member stations, and those stations themselves are funded to a greater or lesser degree by the CPB. > > Not that any of this has the least bit to do with whether the election in Iran was fair or fraud 😛 Nope again. > [@](#): > > Public broadcasting stations are funded by a combination of private donations from members, foundations and corporations (60.4% of 2006 total revenues of all stations), State and local taxes (22.2% of 2006 total revenues) and Federal funds, principally through CPB (17.3% of 2006 total revenues).[1] > > About 90% of the 2005 budget was distributed to public broadcasters across the country, including both local and national organizations. Stations which receive CPB funds must meet certain certification requirements, such as to maintain or provide: > > 1. Open Meetings > 2. Open Financial Records > 3. Community Advisory Board > 4. Equal Employment Opportunity > 5. Donor List and Political Activities > > SOURCE: [Corporation for Public Broadcasting - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadcasting#Funding_of_and_by_CPB) Note the list of requirements. The stations are not government owned nor does the government mandate their programming. ---
**Author:** ![JonathanTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JonathanTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonathanTheRed)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/50 "2009-06-22T21:35:22Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Nope again. How does this contradict what I said? > [@](#): > > Note the list of requirements. The stations are not government owned nor does the government mandate their programming. I never said the government mandated their programming. I did say that NPR is state-supported, as your own cited figures show. As I don’t see why the government should in the media business, I don’t like NPR. Which is, once again, completely non-germane to the topic of this post anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/51 "2009-06-22T21:53:03Z")
> [@JonathanTheRed](#): > > How does this contradict what I said? > > I never said the government mandated their programming. I did say that NPR is state-supported, as your own cited figures show. As I don’t see why the government should in the media business, I don’t like NPR. Which is, once again, completely non-germane to the topic of this post anyway. You said: _“NPR gets a big chunk of its funding (most, I believe) from dues and programming fees paid by its member stations, and those stations themselves are funded to a greater or lesser degree by the CPB.”_ I do not see a “most” in any number I cited. The stations get 60% of their funding from private sources. That is more than 50% hence “most” of their money is not from the government. As for “mandating” their programming you seem to be suspicious of state sponsored media (lumping NPR in there because they get some government money). So they are beholden somehow to the government and cannot be trusted why? ---
**Author:** ![JonathanTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JonathanTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonathanTheRed)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/52 "2009-06-22T22:15:26Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > You said: > > _“NPR gets a big chunk of its funding (most, I believe) from dues and programming fees paid by its member stations, and those stations themselves are funded to a greater or lesser degree by the CPB.”_ > > I do not see a “most” in any number I cited. The stations get 60% of their funding from private sources. That is more than 50% hence “most” of their money is not from the government. I’m really curious here. Clearly you’re intelligent and reasonably competent in English comprehension, so why would you say something like this? Are you just hoping that I’m not paying attention, or what? If you’ll care to examine what I actually said, it was that NPR gets a big chunk or even (I believed) most of its funding from _member stations_, not the government. It would appear that the claim of “most” of their funding coming from this source is at least presently incorrect, but I was led astray by Wikipedia, which [states](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding) “NPR makes just over half of its money from the fees and dues it charges member stations to receive programming,” basing its claim on 2005 data. According to NPR’s [most recent annual report](http://www.npr.org/about/statements/fy2008/fy08nprincreport.pdf), these sources provided about $68M of NPR’s annual $172M budget, which makes it by far the largest source but only approximately 40% of the total. In addition to this sidebar’s irrelevance to the topic, I really don’t see what you’re trying to prove here. Do you _deny_ that NPR is state-supported? > [@](#): > > So they are beholden somehow to the government and cannot be trusted why? Don’t put words in my mouth. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/53 "2009-06-22T22:23:53Z")
You didn’t realise that your words implied a certain Pravda-esque dishonesty? You gonna stick with that story? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/54 "2009-06-22T22:50:45Z")
This is gonna sound a bit off topic but I think there might be a similar dynamic present. Last summer, it seemed like half of Korea turned out to protest Buying mad cow disease ridden beef from America. Korea had just elected a conservative President on the promise of improving the economy and one of the first things he did was to ink a deal with George Bush to buy cheap American beef. There is no real evidence that American beef has mad cow disease (although it would have explained the 2004 election) but people were almost looking for an excuse to protest the President. The Korean beef industry was happy to oblige them by making a somewhat dubious claim that American beef would give Koreans mad cow disease, this was supported by the President’s political opponents and before you knew it the streets were filled with people who were unhappy with the government. My read was that Koreans were experiencing buyers remorse over electing a conservative president. If the election were held again at any point between then and today, the result would be different. I think there has been some credible evidence that the elections were rigged but I have seen equally credible evidence that Ahmedenijad was going to win anyway (by a slimmer margin). I think what we see in Iran is about more than stolen elections, I think it is about a broad rejection of the police state that Iran seems to have become. People were looking for an excuse to express their disapproval over how things were going and the Iranian government responded with lethal force. The Basij lethal enforcement of the Supreme Leader’s orders is going to be Iran’s Kent state. Whatever the election results were on June 10 [?], the election results today would give the office to Mousavi. ---
**Author:** ![JonathanTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JonathanTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonathanTheRed)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/55 "2009-06-23T01:17:27Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > You didn’t realise that your words implied a certain Pravda-esque dishonesty? You gonna stick with that story? With what story, that my dislike of NPR is not based on the mistaken belief that they’re a propaganda outlet for the government? Of course I’m sticking to that story. I know full well that NPR does not show a consistent pro-government editorial bias. It shows a consistent _left-wing_ editorial bias, which has rarely pro-government over the last several years. Who in their right mind would claim that NPR fills the same role that Pravda once did? Just because they don’t take their marching orders from the government doesn’t mean they’re entitled to respect… or anything but contempt, for that matter. They still take the government’s money… _my_ money, and yours, while competing radio stations have to actually appeal to a broad audience if they want to survive. Subsidizing a radio network is a pretty damn stupid use of taxpayer money. And speaking of that: I betcha that donations to public broadcasting will take a sharp decline, as most charitable donations do during times of economic uncertainty. I wonder how much the CPB will beg out of Congress this year. Do you think they’ll threaten to kill Big Bird again? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/56 "2009-06-23T02:10:48Z")
[Here’s](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/20/AR2009062000004.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) something interesting. It turns out that a mathematical analysis of the voting numbers shows them to be nonrandom. > [@](#): > > Each of these two tests provides strong evidence that the numbers released by Iran’s Ministry of the Interior were manipulated. But taken together, they leave very little room for reasonable doubt. The probability that a fair election would produce both too few non-adjacent digits and the suspicious deviations in last-digit frequencies described earlier is less than .005. In other words, a bet that the numbers are clean is a one in two-hundred long shot. ---
**Author:** ![JonathanTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JonathanTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonathanTheRed)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2009, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/57 "2009-06-23T02:32:40Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > [Here’s](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/20/AR2009062000004.html?hpid=opinionsbox1) something interesting. It turns out that a mathematical analysis of the voting numbers shows them to be nonrandom. Thank you. That’s actually interesting. However, it’s things like this that make me really prefer to examine raw data myself and reach my own conclusion: > [@](#): > > The probability that a fair election would produce both too few non-adjacent digits and the suspicious deviations in last-digit frequencies described earlier is less than .005. In other words, a bet that the numbers are clean is a one in two-hundred long shot. The second sentence absolutely does not follow from the first, and frankly betrays mathematical ignorance on the part of the author. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/58 "2009-06-24T06:39:06Z")
> [@JonathanTheRed](#): > > Thank you. That’s actually interesting. However, it’s things like this that make me really prefer to examine raw data myself and reach my own conclusion: Here’s a [zip file](http://www.umich.edu/%7Ewmebane/Iran2009_22jun2009.zip) with the raw data Walter Mebane of the University of Michigan used in this [paper (23 page pdf)](http://www.umich.edu/%7Ewmebane/note22jun2009.pdf). His conclusion was: > [@](#): > > The initially released polling station data show evidence of significant distortions in the vote counts not only for Karroubi and Rezaei but also for Ahmadinejad. No significant distortions are apparent for Mousavi’s vote counts. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/59 "2009-06-24T08:33:07Z")
> [@JonathanTheRed](#): > > The second sentence absolutely does not follow from the first, and frankly betrays mathematical ignorance on the part of the author. I believe the math is correct if you consider that 1 would indicate absolute certainty and 0 would mean zero probability. 200 x .005 = 1. ---
**Author:** ![JonathanTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8491ac/32.png) [@JonathanTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JonathanTheRed)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2009, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518/60 "2009-06-24T15:23:46Z")
> [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](#): > > I believe the math is correct if you consider that 1 would indicate absolute certainty and 0 would mean zero probability. 200 x .005 = 1. I have a die here. A fair die has a 1/6 probability that when rolled, it’ll come up ace. I just rolled it. It came up ace. Does that mean the odds that it’s a fair die are 6:1 against? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-the-iranian-election-stolen/500518.md?page=4)