The following ideas are from "How to Rig Elections," the first chapter of the book Stealing Democracy: The New Politics of Voter Suppression.

Floridians cast six million ballots in the November 2000 presidential election.  At the end of the night, Republican George W. Bush led Democrat Al Gore by just 1,784 votes.  In accordance with state law, Florida conducted a statewide machine recount, which left Bush ahead by only 300 votes.  

At that point, the Gore team focused on four heavily Democratic counties--Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, and Volusia.  An initial manual recount of a few precincts within each of the four counties--in which election workers examined each ballot by hand--showed vote totals different than the machine count.  Each of the four counties decided to manually recount all of its ballots.  

Republican Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris--who also served as co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign--objected to the county-wide manual recounts.  She cited with unnerving specificity that Florida law states that counties can do a hand recount of all ballots if the sample manual recount of a few precincts "indicates an error in the vote tabulation . . . ."  Harris argued that this phrase allowed a countywide manual recount only when the machinery or software used in counting the ballots malfunctioned.  Throughout the next several weeks, she made a number of similar decisions that seemed to favor Bush.    

Harris, the granddaughter of a Florida citrus and cattle baron, was a trim 43-year old brunette.  Her creamy red lipstick and long black eyelashes attracted attention from the press and late-night comedians.  State disclosure records indicated that Harris had a personal net worth of $6.5 million, but her 55-year-old husband, Swedish businessman Sven Anders Axel Ebbeson, was reported to be worth much more.  

From the beginning of the primary season she supported the Bush nomination, traveling with a group of Florida Republicans to New Hampshire to campaign for him.  "I am thrilled and honored to announce my support of George W. Bush for the presidency," Harris pronounced in a statement featured on the Bush-Cheney web site.  Phone records would later reveal that Harris was in contact with the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign and with Florida Republican Governor Jeb Bush during the contested period following the 2000 election.  

Even though counties like Palm Beach had not finished their manual count, on November 26 Harris arrived in the cabinet room of the Florida state house clad in a hunter-red suit jacket to make a formal announcement to the press and the public.  She proclaimed that George W. Bush had won Florida's electoral votes by 537 votes, and that her office "conducted itself with integrity and independence."  In concluding her remarks, Harris stated:

"Finally, I wish to point out that our American democracy has triumphed once again. And this is a victory in which we can also take a great deal of pride and comfort. The true winner in the election is the rule of law. Thank you and may God bless America."

In 33 states across the nation, the secretary of state or some other elections director is an elected partisan like Katherine Harris.  In many other states, the functional head of the Republican or Democratic state party--the governor--appoints the state elections director and/or a commission to administer elections.  

Most other democracies in the world recognize the conflict of interest inherent in partisan oversight of elections, and take concrete steps to address it.  Over half of the world's democracies use independent officials or commissions to administer elections, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and even the newly formed Iraq.   Another 27% allow the government to manage elections but have an oversight body composed primarily of judges, including France, Germany, Spain, Argentina, Japan, New Zealand, and Israel.