Why Should we Show Support?

On June 12, over 80% of eligible voters in Iran showed up to cast their ballots. To compare, the recent US election had a turnout of 57%, Canada had 59%, and the UK had 62%. Iran has a median age of 27 and around 66% of the population is under 35 years old. The young population is engaged in the democratic processes in Iran.

Our goal is not to argue the merits of the political system. The recently-concluded elections were rigged against the democratic wishes of its people:

• Election centers began announcing results before they closed.
• Ahmadinejad was declared the winner shortly after the polls closed. Winners are usually announced 12-18 hours after polling ends. Somehow tens of millions of paper ballots were counted within a few hours.
• Each of the other three candidates lost their hometowns. In a highly ethnic population, this is about as likely as Dick Cheney winning San Francisco, Boston, and New York City. In fact, one of the candidates operates a newspaper in his hometown. He has more newspaper subscribers than the number of votes he received.
• The Supreme Leader twice said the results were good - before recanting and saying a re-count may be needed.
• Multiple reports of ballots running out - even though enough ballots were supposedly printed out to be used by 100% of voters.
• Denied access to polling stations by the opposition candidates.

The people in Iran are already protesting en-masse. Even with the government denying access to tens of thousands of websites whilst simultaneously cutting off bandwidth (thereby making it very difficult to upload videos and pictures), their votes are being heard here. Our goal is to show our solidarity with the Iranian people - not just to the brave protestors, but our governments as well.

Andrew Sullivan has an excellent post on "Why Iran matters".