Is a severely close election now also evidence of rigging as well as 99.9%

[jsamuel]

We all have heard of the 99.9% elections where they all vote for Saddam.

However, if we look at the Mexican election, as described in this thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1613478&mesg_id=1613478


We see that the "righty" seemed to try to cheat "just enough" to win the election. Do 1% difference elections now suggest what 99.9% elections do? If someone is going to cheat to win, wouldn't they "cheat just enough to win" to try to keep evidence to a minimum?

Does this means something for 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008?

[lonestarnot]

1. Yes.

[bobbieinok]

2. yes ..... IMO FL2000 was a BIG mistake; they didn't 'win' by enough votes

The result: everything was looked at and many people began to wonder what was going on in their state. I think some die-hard W supporters are still a bit uneasy about how they 'won.'

So bushco made the 'win' in OH and the rest of the country 'big enough' to make the 'win' believable and so that people would say 'Oh, 100,000+, that's just too big to contest/steal.'

[Selatius]

3. That really depends

If you were to have elections run by an independent professional civil service, you are more likely to have accurate results than not, especially if it is all paper-ballot. International election monitors would boost trust.

We do not have the first in the US, and in the US it is up to individual state governments to decide if election monitors are allowed or banned.

[SensibleAmerican]

4. You need evidence to prove fraud

That evidence existed in Iraq simply because of the fact that other people were not legally able to run. You can use sampling to prove fraud, however, a 1% error in the polling compared to the election results does not prove fraud and the methodology of the poll in question comes into account as well (i.e. exit polling has always had a Democratic bias, even back until 1980s. This does not prove electoral fraud at all.)

In essence, a unbiased scientific discovery is needed to prove fraud (or even disprove fraud, depending on where your burden of proof is).

[jsamuel]

5. absolutely, but we need elections that allow for just that

an unbiased scientific review of each election