Matt Miller, the spokesperson for the US State Department was reacting to a question raised during the press conference about the 41% participation of the Iranian people in the elections announcement by the electoral body.
According to IRNA reporter, Miller responded by saying that Washington still does not have an assessment of the voter participation in the Iranian elections which he said "are generally not reliable."
"I don't think there's any doubt that there's discontent," he said and repeated his last week’s claim that “Washington believed that this election was not free and fair”.
Many Iranian voters also have the same assessment. It is not surprising that many in Iran decided not to participate in the electoral process, Miller added.
On March 1, Iran held elections for 290-seat parliament and 88-seat Assembly of Experts which is a deliberative body. Iran’s Interior Minister, Ahmad Vahidi, in a news conference said that there were 41% voter turnout on Friday, meaning 25 million of some 61 million eligible voters cast their ballots across the country.
The United States had in the past also raised questions about voter turnout or balloting processes in Iran which many people and experts call Washington’s desperation. That despite the US itself is embroiled in elections-related controversies, including the one witnessed during the last presidential election.
In 2020, then President Donald Trump refused to concede defeat amid claims that there were wide spread vote rigging in favor of Joe Biden who finally took over the White House. Trump did not attend Biden’s inauguration rather staged a riot at the Capitol Hill to overturn the election result.
IRNA