Stealing elections doesn't have to be done at the ballot box. It can be done by many means. The government corrupting agencies ad businesses and lying to the media and the American People is a method of stealing an election.
of course....and the US/CIA did lots of “influencing” of elections during the Cold War - and some outright theft.
And politics in general has an acceptable level of corruption built in....walking around money, free beer after you vote, lying outrageously about your opponent, false robo calls, brazen manipulation of “polls” etc. Not to defend any of that, but even when our republic functioned, there was plenty of that.
But I’m only talking about the outright theft, ie, a coordinated refusal to honestly count the votes that were actually cast.
(And remembering when the final states to put Trump over the top “stopped counting” at about 11 pm EST on election night....because the problem was much larger than they anticipated)