The referendums over the independence of Iranian Azerbaijan and Mahabad [in early 1948, in fact] have been carried out.

The results show overwhelming support for the Imperial State, coming up to 95%, while ruined ballots mostly make up the rest. The referendum commissions took a resolutely hard-line stance on faulty or potentially faulty ballots after evidence surfaced of Soviet attempts of meddling with the results.

The Military Administration of Major-General Zarradi states as much to the observers, the Imperial government and anyone concerned.

Observers are shown evidence of Soviet meddling in the voting process. Soviet agents managed to get themselves into positions on the commissions for the independence referendums and other positions to tamper with the vote. Before they could partake in the referendum they were caught by a lucky Iranian intelligence officer and arrested. Suspects are paraded for the observers in a remote Intelligence facility.

Beyond troubles with Soviet agents, the Zarradi administration states that his first and foremost concern is to ensure that voting is carried out according to the constitution - voting is assured and really ensured to be anonymous, and election security and legality tightly followed.

Henceforth, in counting the results, votes for secession will be discarded.

According to electoral law article 3(4) in the Constitution "persons notorious for mischievous opinions" are to be disenfranchised. Secessionists have thus far supported illegal insurgencies, hence their opinions are notoriously mischievous. They should have declared themselves as such before casting their vote. All such votes are declared void retroactively to maintain the legality of the referendum.

Zarradi states the goal of the Soviet agents on voting commissions was certainly to facilitate this illegal voting by striking down recounts and obfuscating the Constitutional order of carrying out votes, or worse still, to carry out what the Soviet Army could not achieve and annex Iranian territory into the USSR.