The head of Iraq’s electoral commission is proposing national elections be held on Jan. 21, five days after the scheduled date.

Afghanistan’s election commission has canceled Saturday’s presidential runoff and proclaimed President Hamid Karzai victor of the war-ravaged nation’s tumultuous ballot.

President Hamid Karzai’s challenger withdrew Sunday from next weekend’s runoff election, effectively handing the incumbent a victory but raising doubts about the credibility of the government at a time when the U.S. is anxious for an effective partner in the war against the Taliban.

Afghan presidential challenger Abdullah Abdullah plans to boycott next week’s runoff against incumbent Hamid Karzai following a breakdown in talks on how to fix the country’s electoral crisis, two people familiar with the discussions said.

Afghanistan will open more voting centers in next week’s presidential runoff than in the fraud-tainted first-round vote, officials said Thursday, rejecting U.N. recommendations that they cut sites to prevent cheating.

President Hamid Karzai’s challenger is calling for the removal of Afghanistan’s top election official before the country’s Nov. 7 runoff.

President Hamid Karzai’s chief political rival agreed Wednesday to take part in the Nov. 7 runoff election, setting the stage for a high-stakes showdown in the face of Taliban threats and approaching winter snows.

Iran has convicted an Iranian-American academic for his alleged role in the post-election unrest in the country and sentenced him to more than 12 years in prison.

The re-election strategy for Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took shape Thursday as he unveiled a broad alliance for January’s parliamentary voting that includes prominent Sunni clans who joined the fight against insurgents.

Say what you will about GOP gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, one thing is clear: He’s no Michelle Obama. An Internet search about the first lady’s thesis at Princeton—a passionate study of being black at an Ivy League university—turns up 30 times as many results as a search about McDonnell’s thesis at Regent University. Of course, she was the subject of national scrutiny, while McDonnell’s thesis holds little interest outside the commonwealth.

A recent editorial on the GOP and the South quoted a decade-old passage from The Atlantic arguing that Republicans are too conservative, but also “too liberal, too, as their all-out retreat from shrinking the government indicates.“ For close-to-home evidence that the charge still holds, look at the otherwise appealing gubernatorial campaign of Bob McDonnell.

Gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds has a plan for improving transportation in Virginia. Here it is: Build consensus. He doesn’t say what the content of the consensus should be. He just thinks there should be consensus. Whatever the General Assembly decides, apparently, is fine with him. This would be the same General Assembly that has largely failed to arrive at any transportation consensus for roughly a decade, despite special sessions and the strenuous efforts of Gov. Tim Kaine, who declared two days after his inauguration that “solving Virginia’s transportation crisis is the most urgent issue facing my administration.“

A lot of gushy talk has washed over the falls about the powerful effect of social media on the situation in Iran. Major cable networks—and millions of individuals—have followed developments there through the micro-blogging site Twitter. Certainly, no one should underestimate the value of Twitter and similar services. They are powerful tools, and their utility in the rapid dissemination of news reaffirms the oft-repeated statement that information wants to be free.

People who live for politics appreciate what real votes in real elections mean. It’s pure heroin for junkies. Six months after a president is chosen, the political community has the shakes. And that is why New Jersey’s and Virginia’s contests for governor always assume a larger role than their actual importance merits. Here we are in the off-off year again, and sure enough, the statehouse battles in the Garden State and the Old Dominion are the focus of a surprising degree of attention.

Iranians packed polling stations from boutique-lined streets in north Tehran to conservative bastions in the countryside Friday with a choice that’s left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.