What ever happened to smart crooks?

You know, if I was going to steal an election in a hotly contested environment, I'd make it close and I'd let the other guy win his home town. I'd want to make the fraud look as REAL as possible. This is what must be so infuriating to the protesters in Iran, the election crooks are so obvious and blatant about it, counting millions of hand votes in two hours and then making a close contest a landslide. What a bunch of idiots. They must have really believed the opposition was docile.