In another case of "what are they thinking?!" the Biden administration has decided to allow the Iranian regime to set up absentee vote collection sites in the United States for its June 28 presidential election to replace Ebrahim Raisi following his death earlier this year. Indulging the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and legitimizing Iran's sham elections is ludicrous — even Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doesn't allow Iran to run an absentee ballot operation on its soil.
Critics call the decision "absurd and shameful," according to an exclusive report published by Voice of America, and rightly so:
Iranian Foreign Ministry official Alireza Mahmoudi told state media on Sunday that Tehran is planning to set up more than 30 ballot stations across the United States for the June 28 vote to replace Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.
Mahmoudi said ballot boxes for Iranian absentee voters would be set up at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and in New York but did not identify other locations.
[...]
In a statement reported exclusively by VOA, the U.S. State Department said on Friday it has no expectation that Iran’s presidential election will be free or fair. The Islamic republic’s ruling clerics permit only loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run for offices such as president and parliament, which are subservient to him on key policy issues.
Iran’s last parliamentary and presidential elections, in March and 2021, respectively, drew record-low official turnouts, with the lack of choices leaving much of the electorate disinterested.
Opponents of Iran’s clerical rulers at home and abroad repeatedly have called for boycotts of Iranian elections, which they view as shams, and they have done so again for the June 28 vote. They also have noted that the Islamic republic seeks legitimacy for its 45-year authoritarian rule by trying to boost turnout for such elections.
VOA asked the State Department how authorizing ballot stations in the U.S. for Iran, whose poor human rights record it has strongly criticized, is consistent with the U.S. view of Iranian elections as neither free nor fair.
A spokesperson responded by noting that Iran set up U.S.-based ballot stations for previous presidential elections, in 2021 and 2017, with approval from the Biden administration and its predecessor, the Trump administration, respectively.
“This is nothing new,” the spokesman said, in reference to the planned ballot stations for next week's vote.
Just because it's nothing new, however, doesn't make it right — especially as Iran escalates its support for terrorists in the Middle East and earlier this year launched a direct attack on Israel. During the Trump years, Iran was scared silly, broke, and the horrific events of October 7 hadn't yet occurred. We still shouldn't have shown any inkling of indulging Iran previously, but it's especially egregious to do so this time around.
Benham Ben Taleblu, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), called the Biden administration's decision "an own goal of moral and strategic proportions for Washington to allow the Islamic Republican of Iran to set up polling stations across America."
"For almost a decade, Iranians have been taking to the streets not for reform but for wholesale revolution against the structure of power in Tehran," Taleblu continued in a statement from an FDD Flash Brief. "This phenomenon is coterminous with historic lows in presidential and parliamentary election turnout."
"Rather than helping imbue the regime and its sham elections with legitimacy, Washington should be using this opportunity to stand with the Iranian people and showcase the brittleness of their authoritarian overlords," Taleblu emphasized.