As of 2007, there are 70 million people in Iran. To try and figure out the eligible voter number, we have to dig deeper. According to the CIA factbook, over 14 million are under the age of 14. Looking at other age distribution maps, the number of 15-17 year olds is probably in the neighborhood of 5 million or so. This works us backwards to about 51 million eligible voters, close to the 47 million that an 85% turnout points us toward.

Summarizing the above – 40 million voters, 47 million eligible, 19 million under 18. Continuing…

If you’ve made it this far, here’s the confusing part. In 2007, the minimum age for eligible voters was raised from 15 to 18 years. This immediately took somewhere around 5 million eligible voters out of the voting pool.

In the 2005 election, there was a turnout of 62% for a total of 29 million votes (also magically based on 47 million eligible voters). Of these, Ahmadinejad only got 5 million in the first round, coming in second place, and then 17 million in the second round, becoming president. Take away the 5 million voters under 18 in that election who wouldn’t be eligible this time, and you have a voter turnout of 24 million people.

So. In 4 years time, the people of Iran somehow became so motivated that almost twice as many people over the age of 18 came out to vote. And they voted for the incumbent?

Ahmadinejad beat his 2005 first round total by 4 to 1! And 7 million more than his second round when he ran against one challenger.

And here I thought voter turnout was only supposed to be high when the people wanted a change.

• 39.2 million votes
• Hand counted ballots
• Total count released within 12 hours of polls closing.

With theory and numbers alone– it would take 907 people just over 12 hours of constant counting at 1 ballot per second to be able to count all 39.2 million votes. Possible, yes. Likely? Not so much. But you never know– read on.

As of 2005, Iran had 324 Shahrestans (counties) in 30 provinces. Tehran is the largest province at 13.5 million people and Ilam is the smallest at 500,000. Counting 40 million votes in 12 hours becomes a lot easier on paper when you split this project up into 324 counties. Once this is done, it would only take an average of 3 people counting for 12 hours in each county. Move your basic math around and you’re looking at 12 people for 3 hours. Granted I’m no expert, and it’s not the answer I was originally looking for, but one could successfully argue for a reasonable doubt that 40 million votes could actually be counted in 12 hours as long as the organization was there to handle it.

Of course, if it is true, I’m sure there are plenty of election officials across the world that would jump at the chance to see such a well oiled and efficient machine in action so they could duplicate for their own election processes.

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Ok, I’m starting to get nauseous and I don’t think it’s the Vicodin. Time to start watching something else.

Phrases such as “bring them on” or “dead or alive”, he said, “indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace”.

That stellar quote, from an interview with Bush by The Times is on part with what a lot of people have thought of him for many, many years.

“I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric.”

Do you think, George?

That combined with the mass of superdelegates that’s planning to endorse Obama over the next day or so will probably lead her to finally bow out completely. We’ll see. The real question is how hard she will push to become the vice president candidate, which IMHO would be a complete mistake for Obama.

Her relaxed mood may give rise to speculation she is preparing to concede to her Democratic rival Barak Obama.

Props to Hillary for not being afraid to drink in public, and if she really is thinking about dropping out, props to her for that as well.