Statistical Analysis of Iran’s Election Data, Fraud Likely Occurred
From the Washington Post (link – Go read it):
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.
3 Responses to “Statistical Analysis of Iran’s Election Data, Fraud Likely Occurred”
Very interesting – it reminds me of some of the cool stories about the application of Benford’s Law to detecting financial fraud. The comments make for good reading too – there is quite alot of controversy around whether this really constitutes proof of fraud or not, and whether the author’s analysis is sufficiently unbiased. (Here is a good article debunking a statistical test that was making waves earlier in the week). The point is kind of moot, though – I think the protests are about a lot more than specific allegations of voter fraud.
From the NYT this morning:
“Despite the Ayatollah’s insistence of the election’s legitimacy, Iran’s most senior panel of election monitors, in the most sweeping acknowledgment that the election was flawed, said Monday that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, according to a state television report.”
Read Iran election fraud claims analyzed at IranAffairs.com