The idea that human beings by nature are wicked is the mother of all evil. 

The first offspring you get from this concept is the idea that we need a state, because we are rabid beasts bound to kill each other if nobody gets a monopoly on the use of violence.

The next offspring is deception in the form of a monopoly on money production, in past times argued to be "necessary to promote trade," nowadays argued to be necessary because "we need some inflation to grease the wheels of the economy."

Once the monopoly in money production has been put into place, the state can create money out of nothing and thus be in a position where it always can win the competition for all sorts of scarce resources, including bread, brains and bullets.

People who disagree with me on this should read Hobbe's Leviathan and the writings of most of today's academics within the social sciences - then ask themselves who these court scribblers have inspired.

When the three aforementioned evil ideas 

1. man is by nature wicked
2. someone must have a monopoly on use of violence
3. this someone must have a monopoly on production of money

are allowed to dictate the evolution of the social order, everything that happens to be positive for the citizenry is in view of the de facto rulers either just a necessity for staying in or increasing power or an unintended and unfortunate consequence.

Therefore, it's utterly foolish NOT to expect that it's a decently high probability that all politics, including elections, imply some level of "rigging," or should we say, neverending "stacking" of cards in favor of the political class and against the citizenry.

Everything else within the domain of political science, economics and sociology is in my opinion details of minimal importance.

In conclusion: 

It's the idea that humankind by nature is wicked that we must cleans out of people's hearts and minds.. 

To achieve this we must come up with a superior idea.

And the only superior idea is that human beings are by nature kind, and that it's bad incentive structures put in place by someone posing as 'protectors' that make people act badly.