Now that it seems like every single national election cycle in this country is suffused with accusations of fraud and malfeasance, it's worth looking to a country experiencing an actual stolen election to provide some sense of clarity.

Venezuelans went to the polls on Sunday, July 28. The incumbent president, Nicolás Maduro, stood for a third consecutive six-year term against Edmundo González, the country's former ambassador to Argentina.

Early the following day, the government announced that with 80 percent of votes counted, Maduro had prevailed with 51.2 percent of the vote to González's 44.2 percent.

To Maduro's opponents, this seemed fishy: Polls taken earlier in July and collected by the Americas Society and the Council of the Americas showed Maduro polling between 12 percent and 25 percent, with González comfortably ahead, anywhere from 59 percent to 72 percent. An exit poll conducted by Edison Research at 100 polling locations corroborated this, finding that González outperformed Maduro by more than 2 to 1, capturing 65 percent to Maduro's 31 percent.