2026年中期选举将成为美国历史上最受关注、记录、剖析和挑战的选举。
2026 midterms are shaping up to be the most intensely observed, recorded, dissected and challenged election in American history.
为什么重要：一小群党派和无党派观察员将出现。司法部监视员、寻找ICE迹象的组织者和实时广播他们搜寻非法投票的公民记者的数量也会激增。
Why it matters: A small army of partisan and nonpartisan observers will show up. So will a surge of Justice Department monitors, organizers looking for signs of ICE and citizen journalists broadcasting their search for illegal voting in real time.
字里行间：研究表明，更多的无党派观察可以增强人们对选举的信心，但官员们担心，希望发现不当行为的活动人士可能会误读日常事件。
Between the lines: More nonpartisan observation can bolster confidence in elections, studies show But officials worry that activists expecting to find wrongdoing could misread routine events.
- 非营利组织Common Cause的安德鲁·沃尔查克（Andrew Walchuck）表示，选举官员一直担心“义务公民记者”可能会干扰选举，Common Cause也在招募无党派选举观察员。
• Election officials have been raising concerns that "vigilante citizen journalists" could interfere with the election, said Andrew Walchuck of Common Cause, a nonprofit organization that's also recruiting nonpartisan election observers.
- “我担心人们会进去声称他们看到了一些他们没有看到的东西，”布伦南中心的安德鲁·加伯说。
• "I worry that people are going to go in and claim they're seeing things that they aren't," said Andrew Garber of the Brennan Center.
- 加伯说：“随着数百万张选票的投票和计票，将会发生一些微不足道的、无害的事情，然后它就会演变成邪恶或不真实的事情。”
• "Just minor, innocuous things that are going to happen as millions and millions of ballots get cast and counted, then it gets spun into something nefarious or untrue," Garber said.
阴谋： 2020年大选结束后，观察家和活动人士侦探的说法加剧了对结果的挑战。
The intrigue: After the 2020 election, claims from observers and activist sleuths helped fuel challenges to the results.
- 随后，它被引导到特朗普竞选团队的众多诉讼中。这些案件几乎全部在法庭上被驳回或拒绝给予救济。
• It was then channeled into numerous lawsuits from the Trump campaign. The cases were almost all dismissed or denied relief in court.
影响者和在线活动家 可以在官员介入或反击之前将有关不当行为的实时指控转化为全国性争议--包括在投票或计票时。
Influencers and online activists can turn real-time claims about wrongdoing into national controversy before officials can weigh in or push back — including while votes are being cast or counted.
- “让我担心的是，我们的政府试图散布阴谋论，散布有关我们选举的谎言. [然后]有更多的人在他们的工作背后有这样的目标让我感到困扰，”沃尔查克说。
• "What gives me concern is that we have an administration that is trying to spread conspiracy theories and spread lies about our elections and... [then] having more people out there with that purpose behind their work troubles me," Walchuck said. The other side:
另一边：“尽管极端民主党人和媒体声称这种情况从未发生，但选民欺诈的证据仍在不断堆积。任何在我们的选举中非法投票的人都将被追究责任，”白宫发言人劳伦·比斯在一份声明中说。
"Despite extreme Democrats and the media claiming it never happens, the evidence of voter fraud continues to pile up. Anyone who illegally votes in our elections will be held accountable," Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement.
- 据司法部称，今年已有二十多起联邦指控人们在不符合投票资格的情况下投票，约有160人被捕。
• This year there have been more than two dozen federal charges against people for voting when they're not eligible and about 160 arrests, according to the Justice Department.
- 无党派组织选举创新与研究中心的一项审查称，非法投票的情况“极其少。"
• A review from the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan organization, says instances of illegal voting are "extremely small."
放大：司法部计划培训1，000名选举监督员，部署到全国各地，这是该机构有史以来最大规模的工作之一。它建立在2024年观察员人数大幅增加的基础上·参议院民主党人组建了自己的选举观察员队伍，利用办公室工作人员来监控民意调查。除此之外，民主党州政党联盟还推出了一项新的50个州加领土招募计划，旨在招募至少10，000名选举观察员。
Zoom in: The DOJ plans to train 1,000 election monitors to deploy across the country, one of the largest-ever efforts from the agency. It builds on a significant increase in observers in 2024 • The Senate Democrats have spun up their own arm of election observers, using office staff to monitor the polls. That's in addition to a new 50-state-plus-territories recruitment program by a coalition of Democratic state parties, aiming to recruit at least 10,000 election watchers.
- 共和党全国委员会正在建立于2020年的选举观察网络，以打击明显的选民欺诈行为。共和党党派报名成为投票工作人员的人数创历史新高，该党正在为观察员和挑战者举办虚拟和面对面的培训。
• The Republican National Committee is building on its election watch network set up in 2020 to counter perceived voter fraud. GOP partisans have signed up in record numbers to be poll workers and the party is hosting virtual and in-person trainings for observers and challengers.
- 一个反ICE活动人士网络正在将ICE观察培训转变为民意调查观察培训，部分回应特朗普政府称ICE可能在投票站逮捕人的说法。当九月份被问及部署特工的问题时，特朗普告诉《时代》杂志，他没有想到这一点。
• A network of anti-ICE activists is transitioning ICE watch trainings into poll watching trainings, responding in part to the Trump administration saying ICE could make arrests at the polls. When asked in September about deploying agents, Trump told TIME magazine he hadn't thought of it.
这些努力将与一系列无党派观察工作共存，从选民保护团体到国际选举观察员。
These efforts will coexist with a slew of nonpartisan observing efforts, ranging from voter protection groups to international election observers.
- 也将有国家党和竞选工作人员谁定期监测民意调查的关注。这些通常是更平凡的，包括监测准确的开放和关闭时间的投票地点，可以弥补快速诉讼。
• There will also be state party and campaign staffers who regularly monitor the polls for concerns. These are typically more mundane, including monitoring accurate opening and closing times for polling locations that can be remedied with quick litigation.
观察员的规则和术语因州法律而异，这些法律还规定了观察员与投票机或制表过程的距离，以及如何记录对不当行为的担忧。
• The rules and terminology for observers vary by state laws, which also govern how close an observer can be to voting machines or tabulation processes and how to document concerns about malpractice.
底线：卡特中心的艾弗里·戴维斯-罗伯茨（Avery Davis-Roberts）表示：“作为一个好奇的公民，有疑问并希望更多地了解选举过程是一件好事。”该中心负责监督国际选举，并将于11月在五个州派遣志愿者。
The bottom line: "Having questions and wanting to understand more about the election process as a sort of curious citizen is a good thing," said Avery Davis-Roberts of the Carter Center, which monitors elections internationally and will have volunteers in five states in November.
- “我们希望人们能够利用观察和我们观察的结果来更好地了解该过程如何运作，并也许能够回答其中一些问题。"
• "And we hope that people will use observation and the findings of our observation as a way to better understand how the process works and maybe have some of those questions answered."