The Islamic Republic of Iran may not be a democracy, but Iran’s leadership does take voter turnout seriously. The Supreme Leader regularly beseeches Iranians to vote, and various regime officials and even Iran’s de facto lobbyists in the United States do cite voter participation as a sign of legitimacy.
Too many U.S. newspapers, on cue, play along. Here is Thomas Erdbrink, the Tehran-based New York Times correspondent, for example:
Iranians lined up at polling places in such numbers on Friday that Iranian election officials extended the voting three separate times, first by two hours, then four hours and finally five hours… In Tehran, the capital, voters in more affluent northern neighborhoods appeared to be showing up in even larger numbers than in 2013, when urban middle-class Iranians across the country helped elect Mr. Rouhani. Voters in those neighborhoods said in interviews that they were attracted to his promises of greater freedom and wanted to block Mr. Raisi.
And here is Erin Cunningham reporting from Istanbul for the Washington Post:
Iranian officials began counting votes early Saturday after heavy turnout in a pivotal presidential election that could either boost Iran’s engagement with the world or possibly plunge the country back into greater diplomatic isolation. Across the nation on Friday, voters filed into schools, mosques and other sites to cast ballots after a campaign offering starkly differing visions. Polling stations had long lines throughout the day, and voting was extended by several hours…Officials cited high voter turnout in extending the voting for four hours, leaving open the option of a further extension.
And Emma Graham-Harrison, reporting from Tehran for The Guardian under the headline “Iran election: huge turnout in presidential poll after bitter contest.”
Millions of Iranians have voted in a bitterly contested presidential election that has pitted hardliners against reformers and is expected to set the country’s direction for a generation. The official announcement of the results was delayed on Saturday due to a high turnout…
Here’s the problem. While, without doubt, voter turnout was high in Tehran and Qom, what about other areas? Reporting from northern Tehran as Erdbrink did is the equivalent of analyzing elections in New York state by only observing the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
While journalists, European diplomats, and many American analysts take Iranian voting statistics provided by the Iranian regime or its designated fixers as authentic, word now comes from Iranian Kurdistan that many local residents there boycotted the vote.
The same may also be the case in the southeastern province of Baluchistan and Sistan raising questions about voter participation in other more distant provinces. If Iranian Kurds did boycott and if voter turnout is a gauge of public attitudes toward the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy, then the natural follow-up question is whether residents in outlying provinces where many ethnic and/or religious minorities live continue to view the regime as legitimate.
Perhaps rather than simply cheerlead the pageantry of election day, it would be worthwhile for Iran-based reporters to visit provincial towns and cities and find out. Then again, the Iranian government probably would not let them, and with good reason.
