It’s really not safe for anyone in the West to offer any specific criticism of the Iranian elections, or the so-called result. Because it’s amply clear that no one in the West can possibly understand Iran’s version of democracy. And how can you complain about the score when you don’t even know the rules of the game?

Iran’s most senior panel of election monitors (admitted) that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters, according to a state television report two days after the country’s supreme leader pronounced the ballot to be fair.

The discrepancies, the most sweeping acknowledged so far by the authorities, could affect some three million ballots of what the government says was an 85 percent turnout numbering 40 million voters.

But even this isn’t a “gotcha” moment.

One, “the authorities insisted that the discrepancies did not violate Iranian law.”

Two, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the official spokesman for the 12-member Guardian Council, said that “a voter turnout in excess of the registered voting list was a ‘normal phenomenon’.”

Three, statements one and two are not as ludicrous as they may sound at first blush. In Iran, “people can legally vote in areas other than those in which they are registered.”