Tehran and Invalid Votes
Tehran and Invalid Votes: As the results of more than 3,500 polling stations in the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections in Tehran were announced, the head of the election headquarters of this province mentioned the possibility of the election in this area going to a second round. The results from 3,501 out of 5,000 polling stations in Tehran, published on the evening of Saturday, March 3, show that Mahmoud Nabavian, as the leading candidate, has only received 342,000 votes, which increases speculation about the high number of invalid votes cast into the ballot boxes.
Basim Laleh, a reporter for the ILNA news agency stationed at the Ministry of Interior, wrote on Saturday on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, that after counting 80% of the ballot boxes in Tehran city, invalid votes exceeded 380,000.
Mohammad Mohajeri, a journalist close to the conservatives, also stated on the same social network that the election results for the Assembly in most cities, even metropolises like Tehran, are strange and interesting, meaning the first or second place is for invalid votes. Other users have also raised this speculation about the number of invalid votes. The Iranian Ministry of Interior has not yet announced the total number of participants in the electoral district of Tehran, Rey, and Shemiranat, but Yasser Jebraili, a political figure close to the government of Ebrahim Raisi, claimed on the social network X, formerly known as Twitter, that only 1,813,000 people voted in Tehran.
He, who is the head of the Strategic Evaluation and Supervision Center for the Implementation of General Policies of the System in the Expediency Discernment Council, further wrote that it is highly likely that the vast majority of Tehran’s representatives will be determined in the second round.
Abbas Johari, head of the election headquarters of Tehran province, also told the Islamic Republic News Agency IRNA on Saturday that there is a possibility of the election going to a second round in the Tehran, Rey, Shemiranat, Islamshahr, and Pardis areas because candidates must obtain 20% of the votes. He added that if the Tehran election goes to a second round, this round will be held in May of the following year.
According to Iranian election law, leading candidates must obtain at least 20% of the valid votes in their constituency to enter the Assembly. Mr. Johari had said on Friday that more than 10 million and 30 thousand people in the entire Tehran province are eligible to vote, but he did not mention the number of eligible voters in Tehran city.
The possibility of a high number of invalid votes has also been raised in other election areas, and Iranian media have reported that in Yazd, invalid votes ranked second. In the 2020 presidential election, which ended with Ebrahim Raisi’s victory, invalid votes ranked second nationwide, above other candidates.
In the absence of official statistics from the Ministry of Interior, state media have uniformly reported a participation rate close to 41% in the March 1 elections and wrote that 25 million eligible voters participated in the elections. The total number of eligible voters in the country was announced to be over 61 million. Due to press and media censorship and the absence of independent observers during the elections in Iran, verifying the number of participants in this election, as in past elections, is not possible.
This round of Assembly elections faced very low turnout due to the dissatisfaction of the majority of society, to the extent that according to the Ministry of Interior’s statistics, 60% of eligible voters did not vote. Meanwhile, unofficial statistics indicate participation below 40%. In this round of elections, according to published reports, Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran, also did not vote and stood alongside the majority of society. This round of Assembly elections, despite the higher percentage of invalid votes and widespread disqualifications, was solely formed with the aim of purifying the Assembly to unify all political and power institutions.