Results of Iran Election Scrutiny

1. In two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100 percent was recorded.

2. At a provincial level, there is no correlation between the increased turnout and the swing to Ahmadinejad. This challenges the notion that his announced victory was due to the massive participation of a previously silent conservative majority.

3. In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that Ahmadinejad had received not only all former conservative voters, all former centrist voters and all new voters but also up to 44 percent of former reformist voters -- despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.

4. In the 2005 election, as in the elections of 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates -- and Ahmadinejad in particular -- were markedly unpopular in rural areas. That makes it "highly implausible" that the countryside swung substantially toward Ahmadinejad.

"The analysis shows that the scale of the swing to Ahmadinejad would have had to have been extraordinary to achieve the stated result," said professor Ali Ansari, a co-author of the survey who is director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at St. Andrews.

Data from the June 12 election suggests a sudden shift in political support toward Ahmadinejad in rural areas, which had not previously supported him or any other conservative, the survey said.

link: Survey raises questions about Iran vote results - CNN.com