Republican attempts to claim the high ground on the issue of voter fraud this election season—on display in the party’s push to enact spurious voter-identification legislation in some states—have been richly ironic. The G.O.P. is, after all, the party that benefited from Bush v. Gore, from the Ohio debacle of 2004, and, as writer and election activist Victoria Collier points out in her November cover feature for Harper’s Magazine, from a rash of suspicious election results in recent years.

In her story, Collier notes that these results coincide with the nationwide shift toward electronic voting since the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) was signed into law by George W. Bush in 2002. As many readers have told us, the case studies she unearths are essential reading, especially given Mitt Romney’s recent performance in battleground-state polls. That’s why, in advance of Tuesday’s election, we’re taking the unusual step of making a cover feature freely available. We believe it’s an important public service to the electorate.

We hope you’re moved to support this work by subscribing to the magazine, and to share “How to Rig an Election” widely.