[...]

Election officials described turnout as unprecedentedly large and authorized the extension of voting by two hours or more in some locations. A massive turnout was widely expected to favor Mousavi, but anti-Ahmadinejad forces expressed widespread concern that the incumbent was intent on stealing the election.

Mousavi and other prominent presidential foes went out of their way on Election Day to stoke a frenzy of vigilance against fraud. "The election should be conducted in such a way that the people should see the outcome exactly in accordance with the votes they cast," said Ahmadinejad’s arch-foe, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president himself.

Meanwhile, Mousavi pledged that his campaign team would keep a close eye on the ballot-counting process. "We demand the election executives keep the votes safe," he said.

Anecdotal eyewitness evidence in Tehran indicated that Ahmadinejad’s allies were indeed attempting to carry out systematic fraud. Among the reports coming in from pro-Mousavi observers was that polling precinct workers, who are predominantly loyal to the presidential administration, were engaging in irregularities.

[...]

For much of the presidential campaign, Ayatollah Khamenei appeared to be a staunch backer of Ahmadinejad. But the day before the vote, there were signs that the Supreme Leader might be wavering. Late on June 11, Rafsanjani held a three-hour meeting with the Supreme Leader. When he emerged from the talks, Rafsanjani sounded an upbeat note, indicating that Ayatollah Khamenei might take action to ensure a free-and-fair election. "This meeting has been one of my more constructive meetings with the leader of the Islamic Revolution," the Ayandeh news agency quoted Rafsanjani as saying.

But early on Election Day, a statement released by the Supreme Leader’s office and broadcast on state television muddied the waters by suggesting that Ayatollah Khamenei would not intervene as Rafsanjani wished.

"The Office of the Supreme Leader denies reports according to which during their meeting His Excellency had come to some sort of agreement with Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani," the statement said.

In another indicator suggesting that the fix is still in for Ahmadinejad, a reliable security source told EurasiaNet that plans for a massive crackdown following the announcement of the final voting results have been prepared.

[...]

Noting my skepticism about the announced outcome of Friday's presidential elections in Iran, readers have been asking me what I think about this WaPo op-ed by Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty pointing out that a scientifically weighted Project for a Terror Free Tomorrow poll in mid-May found Ahmadinejad beating Mir-Hosain Mousavi by a 2 to 1 margin.

I have enormous respect for Ballen, PFTFT and Doherty & the New America Foundation.

But as a mere social historian I would say that the poll actually tends to confirm some of my doubts about the announced electoral tallies.

[...]

So my commonsense, non-technical, historian's comment is that the poll may well have been sound, and Ballen's original conclusions may also have been. But the tenor of his WaPo article contradicts the poll in seeming to find a 63% margin of victory for Ahmadinejad plausible on the basis of it.

Particularly puzzling is that he seems to have forgotten his own observation that the race in May was closer than it seemed, since 60% of undecideds identified with reform principles.

Finally, 42% of respondents successfully contacted declined to answer the poll. Since it is much more likely that reformists would be afraid of government reprisal and afraid of talking about their politics than that Ahmadinejad supporters would be, the possibility that declines were disproportionately pro-Mousavi voters is strong. Although Ballen says voters were willing to answer controversial questions on press freedom or voting for the supreme leader, in fact these are vague and general issues. Imagine if a woman was pro-Mousavi and the phone rang when her husband, a pro-Ahmadinejad voter, was present. She might well just hang up rather than risk a domestic squabble. The decline rate strikes me as quite large, and of a sort that might well skew the results toward Ahmadinejad supporters.