But that is the very issue, like 'Caesar's wife....' every result should be beyond reproach! Every vote rejected because e.g. in a postal ballot it arrived late or was misplaced, or in normal voting registered voters missed out, or whatever, other than a deliberately spoiled ballot paper then every vote should count, whoever suffers as a result of an error, whether intentional or not is disenfranchised and in most democracies they wont even know!
We have seen when a count of the votes is close then a second or third or even fourth count is made... and so it should, but what about when its not close? The phrase well it "wouldn't have made any difference", is still disenfranchising to those whose vote is lost, miscounted, removed etc.
I previously mentioned the US and what arose because Trump found one or two errors and 'picked away' at them, until this 'picking' process itself was fully discredited. For future reference there is now an even stronger need to stop saying " its only a handful of unfair or misplaced votes", because in future the election results will be picked over not just for voter swings etc. but also for fairness, whether this be malpractice, mistake, the influence of ''outsiders' (bots etc.) on the electorate, etc.
Elections, how they are organised and operate is the issue, as far as I am concerned, not military coups. Obviously a military coup doesn't even bother with voting (and all of that democratic nonsense) its a straightforward power play, to oust an elected Government and/or a previous Government coming into power by naked force of arms. Whether any perhaps preceding 'election' was its self 'free and fair' is the crucial question, and whether all so called free elections are truly democratic relies on the whether every vote is as valid as the next.
