I very much doubt either case has anything to do with fraud, just a large enough sample size of precincts in very skewed districts to find cases of everyone voting one way. Here's my basic take: No one is dumb enough to do vote stuffing (or vote nullification) to the tune of 100%. If you are going to rig an election (or, say, a multiple choice test), you do it in a way that looks plausible. No cheater gives themselves a perfect score, because it may raise suspicion. Sure IL has a history of voter fraud (most famously in 1960, in which IL was in play and may have cost Nixon the election), but why stuff ballots in 2012 when IL is meaningless in the electoral college? Obama won IL by 16 points; no amount of ballot stuffing can produce a 16 point victory, because the amount needed would be impossible to cover up. Vote rigging can only work in a close election (see, for example, FL c. 2000). These logical problems make me doubtful that anyone would risk going to jail for literally no gain. The cost-benefit doesn't add up.
You underestimate dumb. I would not put money on the UT results not being fraud (if you follow). I would, however, bet you at any odds that the IL results were fraud. I would also bet you that there was massive voter fraud in PA. I'll go even farther - not fraud at the pools but GOMER vote stuffing in FL has a long and (dis) honorable history. Open systems, strong ID, paper ballots, webstreaming HD recorders and GPS units on ballot boxes, mandatory independent observers at ever location, and a dramatic reduction in absentee voting. Fraud is bad. _XC
I don't follow. Why? Do you think the UT precincts were more anti-Obama than the Chicago precincts in IL? Didn't you suggest that at least a modest error rate would keep the tally non-zero? I could see your thinking there. I'm not following it here.I would not put money on the UT results not being fraud (if you follow). I would, however, bet you at any odds that the IL results were fraud.
I may underestimate dumb, at least in the sense that many people obviously aren't good at cost-benefit analyses, but vote rigging isn't easy, either. We're far from the days where paper ballots can be stuffed or destroyed willy nilly. Places have electronic voting, or paper voting with electronic counters. So even if you're going to ballot stuff, which may be easy, ballot nullifying still is difficult (which you're supposing in this case); a local precinct volunteer can't just erase the counts by pressing the delete key. To do this would take a more coordinated and sophisticated effort, and I just don't see anyone putting in the time and taking the risk for no gain whatsoever. On your other point I agree that we need a national voting system, with rules, regulations and uniformity. If that were the case, we wouldn't need section 5 of the voting rights act, which the Court is going to nullify in the coming term (and I'll bet that at any odds).