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Notes -
To summarize your post:
Machines had a specific organizational structure in 1910.
Pittsburg does not meet this model.
Therefore a different - but related - organizational structure in 2020 could not have interfered with elections.
You may object to the term "political machine" by insisting that the term apply only to the 1910 structure. That's fine. But then lets just apply the term Machina to the 2020 version.
A Machina is a group of organizations with a shared interest in maintaining a stream of graft and they also have some political leanings. The visible elected official at the top is not of primary importance because the graft is no longer vulnerable to interruption by a single elected official. So concretely speaking, Bloomberg or Guliani can get elected mayor of NYC. The net result is that NYC still spends 10x what the rest of the world spends on subways and that money is spread around the Machina, while Bloomberg - a competent adminstrator with no desire to continue this - has no power to do anything about it.
Similarly, Trump has no real power over the federal Machina and it mostly continues doing what it wants.
And the main thing that is known within the Machina is that you should keep quiet about stuff because even if you speak up, the court will come up with a reason to dismiss your case, the media won't say anything, the administrative procedure will find a reason to delay it, etc.
The latter is where a small conspiracy to rig votes by the small but more ideological wing can live. Nothing you've presented contradicts this thesis.
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