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The Internet’s Conspiracy Theorists Are Desperate for Voter Fraud

Voting had been underway in the US for only a few hours, and polls hadn’t even opened in some parts of the country, but Republican strategist and pro-Trump influencer Joey Mannarino had apparently seen enough. “MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF VOTER FRAUD BEING REPORTED ALL OVER THE COUNTRY!” Mannarino asserted on X at 9:02 am EST, offering no evidence to support his declaration. “The Democrats are stealing our country right out from under us!”

在美国投票开始仅几个小时，甚至在全国部分地区投票站尚未开放时，共和党战略家兼亲特朗普的影响者乔伊·曼纳里诺（Joey Mannarino）似乎就已经“看够了”。曼纳里诺在东部时间上午9:02于X平台上断言：“全国各地都在报告大规模的选民欺诈！”但他并未提供任何证据来支持这一声明。“民主党人正在从我们手中窃取我们的国家！”

As in any other election year, as polling places opened, people began showing up to vote, and voting machines started whirring into action, some jurisdictions ran into problems. Severe flooding along Florida’s Space Coast meant about 20 polling places had to be moved. Bad storms over the weekend likely caused brief power outages in Arizona’s Maricopa County, forcing the temporary closure of several polling places. Pennsylvania’s Luzerne County was missing a scanner box. And in Westchester County, New York, voting in the hotly contested House race between incumbent Republican representative Mike Lawler and Democrat Cait Conley hit a roadblock early on Tuesday morning when machines stopped accepting paper ballots.

和往年的选举一样，随着投票站开放、人们开始投票、投票机开始运转，一些司法管辖区遇到了一些问题。佛罗里达州太空海岸的严重洪水导致约20个投票站被迫搬迁。周末的恶劣风暴可能导致亚利桑那州马里科帕县出现短暂断电，迫使几个投票站暂时关闭。宾夕法尼亚州的卢泽恩县丢失了一个扫描仪盒。而在纽约州威彻斯特县，在现任共和党众议员迈克·劳勒（Mike Lawler）与民主党人凯特·康利（Cait Conley）之间竞争激烈的众议院选举中，周二清晨，由于机器停止接收纸质选票，投票工作陷入了僵局。

Voting machine malfunctions—much like bad weather and power outages—are fairly common during elections. While typically attributable to some mundane problem like aging components, these malfunctions are often the source of rumors or conspiracy theories. And like other election years in recent memory, there’s a network of MAGA influencers, Republican lawmakers, pro-Trump trolls, and administration officials with enormous online audiences who are waiting for anything—literally anything—that they can claim is evidence of voter fraud. The Trump administration has also been laying the groundwork, priming its electorate to believe that the American voting system is rigged against them.

投票机故障——就像恶劣天气和停电一样——在选举期间相当常见。虽然通常归因于设备老化等琐碎问题，但这些故障往往成为谣言或阴谋论的来源。和近期记忆中的其他选举年一样，存在一个由“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）影响者、共和党议员、亲特朗普的喷子以及拥有庞大在线受众的政府官员组成的网络，他们正在等待任何——字面意义上的任何——可以被他们声称为选民欺诈证据的东西。特朗普政府也一直在为此铺路，引导其选民相信美国的投票系统是对他们不利的。

Within minutes of reports that ballot scanners in Westchester weren’t working, some of the biggest proponents of election conspiracy theories seized on the countywide glitch to claim that Democrats were sabotaging equipment to prevent Lawler from winning. The Westchester County board of elections initially blamed the fault on “the thickness of the paper ballots” in a statement issued two hours after polls opened. But 20 minutes later, county officials updated the statement, removing the reference to the thickness of the paper and instead blaming a general “issue involving paper ballots.”

在威彻斯特的选票扫描仪无法工作的报道传出几分钟内，一些选举阴谋论的主要支持者就抓住了这个全县范围内的故障，声称民主党人正在破坏设备以阻止劳勒获胜。威彻斯特县选举委员会在投票开始两小时后发表声明，最初将故障归咎于“纸质选票的厚度”。但20分钟后，县官员更新了声明，删除了关于纸张厚度的表述，转而将其归咎于一个笼统的“涉及纸质选票的问题”。

In a separate statement published online, Westchester County executive Ken Jenkins said that once the issues with the ballot machines are resolved, he’ll “convene a bipartisan team to conduct a thorough review of the decisions and failures that led to this debacle, determine where accountability lies and ensure that this never happens again.” “I want to be absolutely clear,” Jenkins wrote. “This situation is unacceptable.” Later in the day, New York State officials put out an additional statement, saying that the problem was that most machines in the county had outdated programming, which meant they could not recognize and process Election Day ballots.

在网上发布的一份单独声明中，威彻斯特县行政长官肯·詹金斯（Ken Jenkins）表示，一旦投票机的问题得到解决，他将“召集一个两党小组，对导致这场灾难的决策和失误进行彻底审查，确定责任所在，并确保此类事件不再发生”。詹金斯写道：“我想明确一点，这种情况是不可接受的。”当天晚些时候，纽约州官员发表了补充声明，称问题在于该县大多数机器的程序过时，这意味着它们无法识别和处理选举日的选票。

“The immediate priority is to restore scanning capability to at least one voting machine at every polling location, with additional machines being brought online as the day progresses,” officials said. They added that the programming issue had only caused ballots to be rejected, not tabulated incorrectly, so voters should have full confidence that “every valid vote will be counted.”

官员们表示：“当务之急是恢复每个投票站至少一台投票机的扫描功能，并随着时间的推移增加更多机器投入使用。”他们补充说，编程问题只是导致选票被拒绝，而不是计票错误，因此选民应该完全相信“每一张有效选票都会被计入”。

In a post on X, the Republican National Committee wrote that, together with Democrats, it is “seeking a joint court order to require central tabulation of ballots at the County Board of Elections.” Representative Claudia Tenney of New York—who has backed efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election—also jumped into the fray. “No surprise,” Tenney wrote. “The Democrats in NY will do anything and everything to cheat.” Conservative broadcaster Mark Levin shared Tenney’s post to his 5 million followers.

共和党全国委员会在X上发帖称，它正与民主党人一起，“寻求一项联合法院命令，要求在县选举委员会进行选票的集中计票”。曾支持挑战2020年选举结果的纽约州众议员克劳迪娅·坦尼（Claudia Tenney）也加入了这场争论。坦尼写道：“毫不意外。纽约的民主党人为了作弊什么都做得出来。”保守派广播员马克·莱文（Mark Levin）将坦尼的帖子分享给了他的500万粉丝。

All manner of MAGA-world influencers have also weighed in. “This is how the Left steals elections,” wrote Katie Miller, who is married to White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller. “Ban voting machines and prosecute those who’ve used them to cheat,” wrote president Donald Trump’s former spokesperson Liz Harrington. “Democrats are already trying to steal the election in New York today,” wrote MAGA influencer Laura Loomer. Loomer also weighed in on polling location problems elsewhere. “The Democrats are already cheating” she wrote on her Loomer Unleashed account, in response to a post about power outages forcing closure of voting centers in Maricopa County.

各种各样的MAGA圈影响者也发表了看法。白宫政策副幕僚长兼国土安全顾问斯蒂芬·米勒（Stephen Miller）的妻子凯蒂·米勒（Katie Miller）写道：“这就是左派窃取选举的方式。”唐纳德·特朗普总统的前发言人利兹·哈林顿（Liz Harrington）写道：“禁止使用投票机，并起诉那些利用它们作弊的人。”MAGA影响者劳拉·卢默（Laura Loomer）写道：“民主党人今天已经在纽约试图窃取选举了。”卢默还对其他地方的投票站问题发表了评论。她在自己的“Loomer Unleashed”账户上回应了一篇关于马里科帕县因停电导致投票中心关闭的帖子，写道：“民主党人已经在作弊了。”

The Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington, which tracks online rumors about elections, found that posts on X about the malfunctioning machines—“often with a conspiratorial framing”—were coming about 150 times a minute just after 10 am EST. While Lawler urged voters to “stay in line” and cast their ballots despite the issues with the scanners, pro-Trump influencer Phillip Buchanan, known as Catturd, shared Lawler’s post, writing: “Every. Single. Election. It’s always somthing [sic].” Catturd also boosted conspiracies about “Democrat shenanigans” in Florida’s Broward县, which suffered technical difficulties which were quickly resolved. MJ Ultra, a prominent pro-Trump QAnon account on X, added: “Broward County Florida is corrupted as hell.”

华盛顿大学负责追踪选举在线谣言的“知情公众中心”（Center for an Informed Public）发现，在东部时间上午10点刚过，X上关于机器故障的帖子——“通常带有阴谋论色彩”——每分钟出现约150次。尽管劳勒敦促选民“留在队伍中”，不顾扫描仪的问题坚持投票，但被称为“Catturd”的亲特朗普影响者菲利普·布坎南（Phillip Buchanan）分享了劳勒的帖子，并写道：“每一次。选举。总是出点什么事。”Catturd还散布了关于佛罗里达州布劳沃德县“民主党诡计”的阴谋论，该县遭遇了很快得到解决的技术困难。X上著名的亲特朗普QAnon账户MJ Ultra补充道：“佛罗里达州布劳沃德县腐败透顶。”

Rogan O’Handley, known online as DC Draino, called what was happening in Westchester the “Maricopa Method of stealing” while also boosting conspiracy theories about Broward County. Meanwhile Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Jamaica, Kari Lake, also shared conspiracy theories about the issues in Westchester and called out so-called liberal “shenanigans” in Maricopa County. Lake has baselessly claimed her 2022 Arizona gubernatorial race and her 2024 Senate race were rigged. While all of this h

在网上被称为“DC Draino”的罗根·奥汉利（Rogan O’Handley）将威彻斯特发生的事情称为“马里科帕窃取法”，同时还散布了关于布劳沃德县的阴谋论。与此同时，特朗普提名的驻牙买加大使候选人卡里·莱克（Kari Lake）也分享了关于威彻斯特问题的阴谋论，并指责马里科帕县所谓的自由派“诡计”。莱克曾毫无根据地声称她2022年的亚利桑那州州长竞选和2024年的参议院竞选受到了操纵。虽然这一切……