Sunday, January 19, 2014

Should We Believe the Egyptian Poll Results?

The Egyptian authorities claim that their new constitution was approved by 98.5% of those who voted. Even allowing for the effect of some opponents boycotting the election, I don't believe it, any more than I believed similar figures when they came out of elections in the Soviet Union and similar places.

The news stories I have seen seem mostly to take the results for gospel. It's possible that their authors know more than I do about how carefully the voting was monitored by outside observers, but given how easy it is to rig the process at one stage or another when one side is running it, I am skeptical.

Any readers have additional information to add, on either side of the question?

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