Electronic elections were canceled in Tehran province

The governor of Tehran announced that the Guardian Council has opposed the holding of electronic elections in Tehran province

According to Iran digital economy annotation, the governor of Tehran announced the cancellation of electronic elections in this province. In an interview with Fars news agency, Alireza Fakhari said: “Previously, there were predictions to hold electronic elections in Tehran province, but with the decision of the Guardian Council, this was canceled for this province, and this year’s elections in this province will be held in the same way as last year.”

Last month, the governor of Tehran announced the preparation of the necessary preparations in Tehran province to hold elections electronically and said that the necessary training has been given in this regard. He said about the importance of the decision of the Guardian Council regarding electronic elections to be held electronically in all or part of Tehran province, which seems to have been completely ruled out.

In June of this year, the Parliament approved that March elections be held electronically in one-eighth constituencies with multiple seats. The Ministry of the Interior had also announced that the 2024 parliamentary elections would be held in 65,000 branches, and according to the law, the voting processes in About 8 thousand branches should be done electronically.

In the past elections, the issue of holding elections completely electronically has been raised many times, and each time the Guardian Council has opposed it for various reasons.

For the first time during Hashemi Rafsanjani’s government and for holding the elections of his second government in 1972, it was decided to use a fax machine to count votes, but this decision was not implemented. In Mohammad Khatami’s government, the government used electronic vote counting in the city council elections in 1977. This experience was the first successful use of electronic processes in elections.

After that, in the elections of the 6th Parliament in 1978, the government wanted to hold the elections of the 6th Parliament electronically, but the Guardian Council did not agree to this two days before the elections, even though all arrangements had been made. Then the Guardian Council, once again and this time during the presidential election of the 8th government in 1980, also opposed this issue because it was not sure of the functioning of the vote counting software.

In 2006, the Guardian Council agreed that some stages of parliamentary elections were held electronically in only 13 cities, and in 2008, the Election Supervisory Council did not approve the software that was designed.