A Mathematical Analysis Of The Iranian Elections

The article is very interesting in my view. It states that a sampling of the numbers do not follow expected random patterns.<p>But let's talk about the real issue. When you forbid independent monitors, announce results before the votes gets counted, and conclude absolute certainty in the results before there is a statistical analysis, it is hard to believe in a fair election.

Weird. The article is invoking Benford's Law without identifying it.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law</a><p>Here's an article that concludes that the election results do not run afoul of Benford's Law:<p><a href="http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/benfords-law-and-iranian-election.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.jgc.org/blog/2009/06/benfords-law-and-iranian-ele...</a>

The real question is: given any set of data, after the fact, what is the chance that a numerology detective can find some metric that will indicate suspicious activity? (Pretty much 100%)<p>I'm calling bullshit.

Is there a link to a more technical version of this somewhere? That might settle alot of the debates going on (on this website that is).

Again, people fall into the fallacy that statistical averages must be followed exactly. It is not so.<p>Edit: Very surprised at the -3 mod. Are people here really so bad at statistics that they think this?<p>Example: Just because the average rainfall in a spot is 10 inches, does NOT mean it has to be 10 inches every year. If you have 6 inches one year that is NOT an anomaly. That is perfectly normal. Sure it might be unlikely - but unlikely things still happen! In fact they must happen, just not as often at the more likely things.<p>So the analysis of the votes, sure it might not match the average, but that doesn't mean a whole lot. It could simply mean that you happened to get the 10% chance.<p>PS. Not that the vote fraud is in question. It's not, it's obviously fake. But not because of this analysis.

"It's not the people who vote that count. It's the people who count the votes." (Josef Stalin)<p>Either if the elections are rigged or not, 49% of the population can not be subdued to the will of the ruling 51%<p>We need to change electoral systems, specially "winner takes all" ideologies, the tyranny of the majority.<p>We need to learn to live together and share power together.<p>And to separate if we can not. Nothing should be imposed.