March 2010

With so much coverage over the past several months of the Green Revolution in Iran, it’s easy to forget how often disputed election results occur in nascent democracies, how often this leads to street-level protests, which end up, far too frequently, with street-level violence. And even without violence, disputed election results, whether caused by wholesale corruption in the worst cases, or honest mistakes in the best cases, damage presidencies and the overall reputation of democracy. Most recently, Afghanistan’s disputed election last year has undermined President Karzai’s government, while the disputed 2000 election in the United States—arguably the...