**Written by Doug Powers

Ever since the gleam in the eye of American progressives/socialists — Venezuela — started going disastrously wrong, it was perhaps inevitable that they would find other inspiration to peddle. Bernie Sanders’ wife Jane might have found one:

Iran as a beacon for voting rights? Great idea:

Neither Sanders nor Nichols mentioned that the Iranian regime has been accused of rigging elections, most famously in 2009, when then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won reelection under suspect circumstances. The election results sparked massive protests and demonstrations throughout Iran that the regime violently suppressed.

The Guardian Council, the powerful body that vets candidates for Iranian elections, controls who can run for president. This year over 1,600 hopefuls registered to run, but the council narrowed the field down to six finalists who were only allowed to campaign for about a month. The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, directly or indirectly appoints all 12 members of the Guardian Council, giving him significant influence over who is allowed to campaign. The supreme leader appoints six clerics to the body, and the Iranian Parliament elects the other six from a pool of jurists nominated by the chief of the judiciary, who is appointed by the supreme leader.

No woman has ever been allowed to run for Iran’s presidency.

Learn more about how awesome Iran is for freedom when Jane Sanders manages to reboot Burlington College with a satellite campus in Teheran.

Oh, and also nobody tell Sanders that Iran has a voter ID law:

**Written by Doug Powers

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