Alvin Greene, the Democratic candidate for the senate in South Carolina, came out of nowhere. The more he appears in public, the more the mystery deepens. He was the subject of a satirical rap video that was taken as a real campaign commercial until mercifully removed from YouTube after complaints by a teabagger alleging copyright infringement.
Looking at clips of his blank and distant face, I was reminded of Peter Sellers playing Chance the gardener in the film, ‘Being There’.
Alvin Greene seems sincere and guiless, which makes it more suspicious that he is involved in politics.
New evidence, disclosed by Mark Crispin Miller, raises questions about the results of the electronic voting machines used in the election. The paper absentee ballots would have given the election to his opponent.
In a time when close elections are more the norm than the exception, this is a clanging alarm. Democracy depends on the vote, and no issues of convenience or cost outweigh the importance of making every vote count.
Kmareka.com 
Ok, I get that the “wrong” guy won the election and that the democratic candidate, Alvin Greene all but assures the election of Jim DeMint. The assumption that Vic Rawl would be a more viable candidate against DeMint would be well taken save for the fact that he got stomped by Greene.
Now, in many respects, I have a better shot at knocking off DeMint than does Greene. That said, the report by Miller is laced w/ suppositions, anecdotes, and erroneous conclusions. Miller cites the disparity between the results of election day and those of the later counted mail-in ballots. As depicted by Miller, the results in most cases were the exact opposite – what Greene won on election day was directly opposite of the results of the mail ballots won by Rawl.
In spite of what Rawl asserts, even though there was no concerted effort by either candidate to seek absentee ballots, the local/state party often takes on this task as part of its effort to support the endorsed candidate. So, even though Rawl’s campaign didn’t go all out for absentee ballots, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the party apparatus did, which also provides a reason why Rawl did significantly better than Greene in this area.
Moreover, the disparity between the election day and absentee ballots would be eye-popping were in not for the spread-sheet provided by voterga.org. That spread sheet shows the actual total votes broken down by election day and absentee (both mail-in and in-person) votes. Even a quick perusal of these votes clearly shows that in no case would these absentee ballots even come close to changing the results of the election. In fact, including the absentee ballots into the total cast changes the final percentages by approximately 0.5%. In other words, the number of absentee ballots is not statistically significant so as to draw a conclusion that the election day vote was tainted.
I don’t mean to take away from your central point that elections must be transparent and verifiable. That is particularly true here in Rhode Island where the statutes and accompanying BoE rules are not particularly receptive to challenges. Indeed, I would assert that the statutes/rules preclude serious election challenges/recounts.