From WNYC in New York, this is on the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield. This week, Iranians returned to the polls for the first time since 2009's presidential election, widely believed to have been rigged, sparked massive protests that were crushed by the government.

In Friday's parliamentary vote, the leadership offered citizens a choice between hardline and

harder-line candidates, but the electorate's most crucial decision was whether to vote at all.

Opposition groups and reformers have called for a boycott of the elections, but the government pressured citizens to vote to show the world that they believe in Iran's political process.

As we're recording this on Friday, the government has claimed, quote, massive turnout,

while foreign journalists in Iran report meager numbers at the polls.

This, despite heavy restrictions on where media could go

and to whom they could talk on election day.

Mohamed Sahimi covers Iran for the Tehran Bureau blog.

He told us that citizens who declined to vote

would not be able to hide from that decision.

When Iranians go to polling stations, they carry a birth certificate of several pages,

and the last page of that birth certificate is a stamp that indicates that this person

actually voted on March 2, 2012.

So when later on, they go, for example, to a governmental organization, ask for something,

or when their management, where they work, summon them to prove that they have voted,

they can check their birth certificate and see whether they have actually voted or not.

But at the same time, of course, there is a very large segment of the population that does not deal with the

government directly in this way or is willing to accept the risk and not go to polling

sessions.

So in this contest, within a contest, the government is employing media in various ways.

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