Following the launching of the idea of forming a national Committee to Safeguard ‎Election Votes by reformist presidential candidates and the negative responses by the ‎Guardian Council and the Ministry of the Interior - bodies that are responsible for ‎overseeing and implementing national elections in Iran - including personalities affiliated ‎with the administration, Rooz spoke with Abbas Abdi, the prominent journalist and ‎political activist on the subject. Here are the details.‎

Rooz: There was a report recently about the establishment of a “Committee to Safeguard ‎Votes”. What led to the formation of such a group?‎
Abbas Abdi (Abdi): There are many reasons for its establishment. A person needs to ‎protect his vote just like he protects his assets and belongings. So this is a natural ‎measure.‎

Rooz: What other reasons can you provide for this?‎
Abdi: Some serious issues came up during the ninth presidential elections in 2005 and ‎there are many long stories for each. Some complained to God while others objected and ‎complained about the way the votes were tallied, but to no avail. So the reason for the ‎creation of such a committee is obvious and clear.‎

Rooz: Is there any discussion about the responsibility and tasks of the committee?‎
Abdi: Any vote that is cast must be safeguarded. The rest depends on the individual ‎himself.‎

Rooz: Such as what?‎
Abdi: What exactly is to be done at the ballot boxes, or that all the tallies of each ballot ‎box be displayed on an Internet site so that everyone can have access to it. This way, the ‎candidates, their representatives and all supervisory bodies and the whole world will be ‎able to compare the announced figures and see whether they are compatible with what the ‎Election Board announces. ‎

Rooz: You mean the transparency of the communications and information provision of ‎the results of the election.‎
Abdi: Yes, transparency will be a huge help in this regard. Different methods can be used ‎to accomplish this.‎

Rooz: Can you tell us some of the examples of past violations?‎
Abdi: We have had instances. For example in the 1997 elections in the province of ‎Lorestan, the number of votes exceeded the number of people in the electorate province. ‎In other words the candidate who had scored the second highest votes in all provinces of ‎the country, came first in his own province. This shows that the integrity of the system ‎was not the best.‎

Rooz: How did this happen? Did some people vote more than one time or did they have ‎fake ids, or what else?‎
Abdi: I am not the person to know the details of the issues. This question should be asked ‎of those who are in the loop on this issue, that is they are either supervisors or ‎implementers of the elections process. ‎

Rooz: Mr. Abdi, the spokesperson of the Guardian Council said a few days ago that this ‎committee was illegal. What do you think?‎
Abdi: The Guardian Council is responsible to comment on the laws of the Majlis. I do not ‎know why it expresses its opinion on the actions of other people.‎

Rooz: Do you mean that there is nothing wrong with this issue?‎
Abdi: There is no problem with the committee to safeguard people’s votes. There is ‎nothing in the law to make it problematic, in fact the law says that it should be created.‎

Rooz: Which law?‎ Abdi: The law says that election candidates can have supervision over voting boxes. As a ‎principle, one can create a special program for all monitors.‎