Republicans spend a lot of time these days trying to protect the vote against nonexistent threats and potential non-Republican voters, like students and poor people.  But if you gave Michael Moore psychedelic drugs he couldn’t have parodied the GOP’s voting problems better than they have on their own.

For example, you thought Romney won Iowa, right? At least that’s what Fox News announced the next day.

Hold on!

The certified numbers: 29,839 for Santorum and 29,805 for Romney.

Oh, then Santorum won by 34 votes, right?   Um . . .

THE RESULTS: Santorum finished ahead by 34 votes
MISSING DATA: 8 precincts’ numbers will never be certified
PARTY VERDICT: GOP official says, ‘It’s a split decision’

Except the 8 precincts’ votes that the GOP regards as “missing” are online for non-Republicans with ordinary math skills to analyze.

If those results are added to the certified results, Santorum’s 29,839 votes would become 29,920, and Romney’ 29,805 would become 29,851 — for a “final” result of Santorum winning the caucuses, by a margin of 69 votes.

And then there’s the very democratic process by which a bunch of evangelicals got together and decided to endorse Santorum.

It was not until the third ballot, after some of Gingrich’s supporters left, that Santorum cleared the three-quarters threshold, receiving 85 votes, to Gingrich’s 29.   . . . [A]ll the participants had been bound by an agreement not to speak for 24 hours.  . . . “It wasn’t a consensus and it wasn’t an endorsement,” added former representative J.C. Watts (R-Okla.), who was also at the session and also expressed concern at how the outcome was being portrayed.

And these guys are asking us to trust them to run the country?