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A first-digit anomaly in the 2009 Iranian presidential election

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  • Boudewijn F. Roukema

Abstract

A local bootstrap method is proposed for the analysis of electoral vote-count first-digit frequencies, complementing the Benford's Law limit. The method is calibrated on five presidential-election first rounds (2002--2006) and applied to the 2009 Iranian presidential-election first round. Candidate K has a highly significant ( p >0.15% ) excess of vote counts starting with the digit 7. This leads to other anomalies, two of which are individually significant at p ∼ 0.1% and one at p ∼ 1%. Independently, Iranian pre-election opinion polls significantly reject the official results unless the five polls favouring candidate A are considered alone. If the latter represent normalised data and a linear, least-squares, equal-weighted fit is used, then either candidates R and K suffered a sudden, dramatic (70%±15% ) loss of electoral support just prior to the election, or the official results are rejected ( p ∼ 0.01% ).

Suggested Citation

  • Boudewijn F. Roukema, 2014. "A first-digit anomaly in the 2009 Iranian presidential election," Journal of Applied Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(1), pages 164-199, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:japsta:v:41:y:2014:i:1:p:164-199
    DOI: 10.1080/02664763.2013.838664
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    Cited by:

    1. Bogdan Vasile Ileanu & Marcel Ausloos & Claudiu Herteliu & Marian Pompiliu Cristescu, 2019. "Intriguing behavior when testing the impact of quotation marks usage in Google search results," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 53(5), pages 2507-2519, September.
    2. Gueron, Eduardo & Pellegrini, Jerônimo, 2022. "Application of Benford–Newcomb law with base change to electoral fraud detection," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 607(C).
    3. Gamermann, Daniel & Antunes, Felipe Leite, 2018. "Statistical analysis of Brazilian electoral campaigns via Benford’s law," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 496(C), pages 171-188.
    4. Fetter, Frederico & Gamermann, Daniel & Brito, Carolina, 2021. "On the stability of the Brazilian presidential regime: A statistical analysis," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 571(C).

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