The Jerusalem Post reports that
Iran's Guardian Council admitted election fraud in dozens of cities:
Iran's Guardian Council admitted to irregularities in the June 12 presidential election, implying that the number of votes from the June 12 presidential election collected in 50 cities surpasses the number of eligible voters.
Council spokesperson Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei, speaking on the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) Channel 2 on Sunday, made the remarks in an attempt to play down accusations of election fraud launched by failed presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei.
"Statistics provided by the candidates, who claim more than 100% of those eligible cast their ballot in 80-170 cities are not accurate - the incident happened in only 50 cities," Kadkhodaei was quoted on the Iranian state-funded Website Press TV.
Only 50? Well, that makes me feel better. How about you?
A New York Times report is more specific yet as to
election fraud revelations, as well as complaints and suspicions:
Iran’s most powerful oversight council announced on Monday that the number of votes recorded in 50 cities exceeded the number of eligible voters there by three million, further tarnishing a presidential election that has set off the most sustained challenge to Iran’s leadership in 30 years.
The legitimacy of the vote remains at the core of the dispute. On Monday, the Guardian Council sought to help validate the outcome when it announced there had been discrepancies... which it said involved up to three million votes, not enough to overturn the landslide election margin that the government had announced for Mr. Ahmadinejad. But the recognition of a broad discrepancy between the number of recorded votes and registered voters in some districts only fueled suspicions that the election — and the Guardian Council’s arbitration of it — was unfair.
The Guardian Council is scheduled to certify or nullify the vote on Wednesday, or, some speculated, call for a runoff between the two top vote-getters. It has so far appeared to prejudge the race as fair and legitimate.
The extra votes add to a list of complaints leveled against the election by the reform candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, and other challengers inside and outside Iran. Among them:
How did the government manage to count enough of the 40 million paper ballots to be able to announce results within two hours of the polls closing? How is it that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s margin of victory remained constant throughout the ballot count? Why did the government order polls closed at 10 p.m. when they often stay open until midnight for presidential races? Why were some ballot boxes sealed before candidates’ inspectors could validate they were empty? Why were votes counted centrally, by the Interior Ministry, instead of locally, as in the past? Why did some polling places lock their doors at 6 p.m. after running out of ballots?
