Does Going By The Rules Matter?

Is winning so important that it's OK to cheat in order to ensure a winning outcome?

I saw a movie one time where Gary Sinese played a golfer who admitted that he had won a golf tournament years earlier because he failed to penalize himself for committing a rules infraction.  One of the great things about golf is that it's self-policing; competitors are supposed to call penalties on themselves.  Oftentimes, this is the only way a penalty can be assessed, because only the golfer has seen or noticed the infraction.  In the movie, the character played by Gary Sinese revealed that he was troubled for years by his dishonesty, and in the end, he finally endeavored to make amends and let the rightful winner of the tournament be acknowledged.

In competition, does following the rules matter, or is it more important to win, even if it means breaking the rules?

How about in politics?

Is it important that election rules (and laws) be followed, or is it more important for a person's preferred candidate or position on an issue to win?

I am reminded of a time a couple of decades ago when there was a school levy on the ballot in a certain school district.  In that school district was a nursing home, in which resided a number of people who had lost their decision-making capabilities.  Yet according to the law at the time, people were allowed to go to assist the nursing home residents in voting, and it was reported that people on one side of the issue were offering to residents the opportunity to vote from their rooms via absentee ballot, and that these people would help these residents vote.  The adult daughter of one resident reported her resident-parent (who was incapable of decision-making) was recorded as having cast an absentee ballot in the school levy election (that was the only issue on that ballot that election), even though this daughter (who had Power of Attorney) never requested a ballot for her parent.

Regardless of a person's position on whether or not that school levy should have passed, was having someone cast a vote for that person legal (or if legal, was it ethical)?  Is it more important to play by the rules/laws, or is it more important that a person's preferred outcome on an issue or candidate be realized, no matter what it takes to win?

What about when candidates for national office break the rules to get votes?