美国的选举官员已做好应对麻烦的准备。唐纳德·特朗普未能改变投票规则。各城市和州仍在为可能的恶作剧做准备 |亚利桑那州弗洛伦斯|6分钟阅读 在亚利桑那州弗洛伦斯市——一个距离凤凰城约一小时车程的城市——当地投票中心的工作人员正在进行桌面演练，这是描述为应对选举地狱而进行的培训的委婉说法。其目的是想象各种灾难——火灾、停电、炸弹威胁——然后制定B计划、C计划和D计划。
America’s election officials are ready for trouble Donald Trump has failed to change voting rules. Cities and states are preparing for mischief anyway |Florence, Arizona|6 min read On a fine day in Florence, a city an hour’s drive from Phoenix, staff at the local voting centre are doing a tabletop exercise, the euphemism to describe training for election hell. The point is to imagine calamities—fire, power outages, bomb threats—then have a Plan B, C and D. Officials have always made some doomsday preparations, but this year’s exercise is more thorough, and the range of threats broader.
官员们一直在进行一些末日准备，但今年的演练更加彻底，威胁范围也更广。例如，如果联邦执法人员出现在投票站，他们应该怎么做？
What, for example, should they do if federal law-enforcement agents show up at the polls?
工作人员正在演练相关程序。司法部（DoJ）的监督员若持有官方文件，可以留在现场；事实上，政府已表示将在全国范围内派遣1000人。其他任何执法人员必须离开，除非他们本人来投票；亚利桑那州法律规定，投票站周围必须保持75英尺（25米）的安全范围。“如果他们拒绝离开，情况就会变成一种情形，”弗洛伦斯所在的皮纳尔县记录办公室的一名选举工作人员说道。换句话说：叫治安官来处理。
The staff run through the protocols. Monitors from the Department of Justice (DoJ) can stay if they have an official letter, and indeed the government has said 1,000 will be dispatched across the country. Any other agents must vacate unless they are themselves voting; Arizona law mandates a perimeter of 75 feet (25 metres) around precincts. “If they refuse to leave, that’s when the scenario becomes a scenario,” says an election worker in the recorder’s office in Pinal county, of which Florence is the seat. In other words: call the sheriff.
皮纳尔县是共和党县。该县的一部分位于亚利桑那州第6国会选区，这是中期选举（11月3日）中数十个激烈竞争的众议院席位之一。我们的预测显示，民主党有望夺回众议院，甚至可能也夺回参议院。令人担忧的问题是，唐纳德·特朗普是否会尝试任何手段来破坏选举的合法结果。
Pinal is a Republican county. A portion of it lies in Arizona’s 6th congressional district, one of several dozen competitive House races in the midterm elections on November 3rd. Our forecast suggests Democrats will flip the House and possibly the Senate, too. The nagging question is what schemes, if any, Donald Trump might attempt to subvert the election’s legitimate results.
他试图推翻2020年选举失利的努力，让所有人意识到美国分散式选举体系中的诸多压力点，以及他可能采取的极端手段来施压这些点。到目前为止，他今年所做的诸多干预尝试基本没有产生实质效果，国会和最高法院阻止了他修改投票程序的尝试。各州而非联邦政府负责选举；而他们的规则基本上与往届选举周期保持不变。然而，行政部门已经从维护选举诚信的力量转变为破坏选举诚信的力量，11月份，该体系将再次接受考验。
His effort to overturn his loss in 2020 wisened up everyone to the many pressure points in America’s decentralised election system, and the lengths he might go to squeeze them. So far, his many attempted interventions this year have amounted to little, with Congress and the Supreme Court blocking his efforts to rewrite voting procedures. States, not the federal government, run elections; and their rules are mostly unchanged from past cycles. However the executive branch has shifted from being a force to support elections’ integrity to one undermining it, and in November the system will be tested once more.
一些变化并非主动干预，而是帮助的撤除。去年，网络安全和基础设施安全局（CISA）停止承担地方参与网络威胁共享服务的费用。该项目的成员数量下降了三分之二。正如前CISA官员Geoff Hale所说，其结果是网络攻击更可能蔓延。“如果一个司法管辖区遭遇一次攻击并被攻破或击退，但如果他们不共享该攻击的信息，那么其他选举司法管辖区仍然同样脆弱。”同样，据报道，FBI目前没有计划成立其选举指挥中心，而在过去几年，该中心负责监测威胁并与地方执法部门协调。
Some changes represent not active interference, but the removal of help. Last year the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) stopped covering localities’ cost to participate in a service for sharing cyber threats. Membership in the programme is down by two-thirds. The upshot is that cyberattacks are more likely to proliferate, says Geoff Hale, formerly of CISA. “If a jurisdiction faces one and gets compromised or repels it, but if they’re not sharing information about that attack, then other election jurisdictions remain equally vulnerable.”Similarly, the FBI reportedly has no plans to stand up its election command centre, which in past years monitored threats and co-ordinated with local law enforcement.
然而，选举管理者也越来越将联邦政府视为威胁，Public Rights Project（PRP）诉讼组织的Jonathan Miller表示，该组织代表地方政府。今年早些时候，司法部表示将起诉允许非公民投票的官员。这种选民欺诈极其罕见，但非公民投票的幽灵助长了选举被窃取的神话。正是这一原因，MAGA活动人士称他们希望在投票站实施移民执法。
However, election administrators increasingly view the feds as a threat, too, says Jonathan Miller of Public Rights Project (PRP), a litigation group that represents local governments. Earlier this year the DoJ said it would prosecute officials who let non-citizens vote. Such voter fraud is extremely rare, but the spectre of non-citizen voting propels the myth of election theft. It is the reason that MAGA activists say they want immigration enforcement at the polls.
他们的存在将是非法的：联邦法律禁止政府官员向选区派遣武装特工。代表丹佛市，PRP已向国土安全部提起诉讼，旨在防止选举日出现类似情况。特朗普政府表示，它没有巡逻选区的意图，但可能采取有针对性的行动，例如对涉嫌非法移民的人发出逮捕令。民主党人担心，投票站附近的执法存在会削弱少数族裔的投票率，而少数族裔往往倾向于支持民主党。
Their presence would be illegal: federal law prohibits government officials from sending armed agents to precincts. On behalf of the city of Denver, PRP has sued the Department of Homeland Security, seeking to pre-empt anything like that on election day. The Trump administration says it has no intention to patrol precincts, but that it may take targeted action, such as serving warrants against anyone suspected of being an illegal immigrant. Democrats fear that an enforcement presence near polling places would dampen turnout by minorities, who tend to vote Democratic.
加州大学圣地亚哥分校的一项调查显示，三分之一的西班牙裔表示，尽管他们是公民，但仍预计会在投票站被盘问。近半数人表示，他们预期会遭遇某种形式的威胁。
In a survey by UC San Diego, a third of Hispanics said they anticipate being questioned at the polls despite being citizens. Nearly half say they expect some form of intimidation.
选举专家们的噩梦场景是，特朗普可能试图夺取投票设备或选票。这将打破“保管链”——即规定谁可以处理选票、选票流向何处的控制机制，以确保所有选票都能被清点。一旦失去保管权，就很难判断选票是否被篡改。“我会对验证这些选票感到非常不安，”亚利桑那州马里科帕县前任记录官斯蒂芬·里彻说。“然后你就会踏上一条黑暗的道路，比如，你是否必须重新举行选举？”
Election experts’ nightmare scenario is that Mr Trump might try to seize voting equipment or ballots. That would break the “chain of custody”, the controls that set out who can handle ballots and where they go, ensuring all are accounted for. Losing custody would make it hard to know whether ballots had been manipulated. “I would feel very uncomfortable about validating those ballots,” says Stephen Richer, a former recorder in Arizona’s Maricopa county. “Then you start going down the dark road of, like, do you have to call a new election?”
过去两起与选举相关的事件已经让民主党人警惕可能的干预。今年1月，FBI突袭了佐治亚州富尔顿县的一个选举办公室，并带走了2020年的材料。随后在3月，加利福尼亚州河滨县的共和党治安官查德·比安科（Chad Bianco）扣押了去年全州公投中已投出的选票。FBI和比安科在申请逮捕令时均引用了错误信息作为依据。
Two incidents concerning past elections have primed Democrats to the possibility of meddling. In January the FBI raided an election office in Fulton county, Georgia, and carted away material from 2020. Then in March, Chad Bianco, a Republican sheriff in Riverside, California, seized ballots that had been cast in a statewide referendum last year. Both the FBI and Mr Bianco cited misinformation in their requests for warrants.
11月会不会出现类似的骗局？之前的事件发生在选举结束之后，而不是选举进行中的中途。本月，特朗普在白宫接见了蒂娜·彼得斯。她曾是一名县书记官，因在2020年向另一名选举否认者未经授权提供投票机的访问权限而入狱，随后获得科罗拉多州民主党州长的特赦。她访问华盛顿期间据称向特朗普提出了一个计划，即在今年11月夺取选票。另一名MAGA麻烦制造者埃德·马丁在接受采访时描述了他们的会面，并对中期选举作出了这样晦涩的评价：“总统将不得不去做他该做的事。”
Could there be a similar ruse in November? The prior incidents occurred after elections were over, not in the middle of one. This month Mr Trump welcomed Tina Peters at the White House. A former county clerk, she went to prison for giving a fellow election denier unauthorised access to voting machines in 2020, then was pardoned by Colorado’s Democratic governor. On her visit to Washington, she reportedly pitched Mr Trump on a plan to seize ballots this November. Ed Martin, another MAGA troublemaker who described their meeting to an interviewer, offered this cryptic assessment of the midterms: “The president’s going to have to do what he’s going to do.”
州和地方官员已进入高度戒备状态。科罗拉多州现在要求县书记官记录一切，以便在法官下令从其保管中移除材料时能够有清晰的记录。亚利桑那州的一名县官员表示，她已确保投票机供应商有额外的备件，以防联邦政府扣押设备时能够应对。亚利桑那-墨西哥边境的皮马县县记录员加布里埃拉·卡萨雷斯-凯利称，当地律师已起草好限制令，以防移民特工到场。
State and local officials are on high alert. Colorado now requires county clerks to log everything so that they have clear records if a judge ever orders material removed from their custody. One county official in Arizona says she has made sure her voting-machine vendor has extra supply, so they are ready if the feds seize equipment. Gabriella Cázares-Kelly, the recorder in Pima county, along the Arizona-Mexico border, says lawyers there have restraining orders drafted if immigration agents show up.
“他们会插上几样东西，点击打印，然后亲自把文件送给等候的法官。”此类情形仍然非常不可能。但官员们还必须应对选举否认活动人士，他们经常提交无聊的公共记录请求和对选民登记的质疑。在佐治亚州等摇摆州，他们还设法赢得了地方董事会的席位，其中一些人计划在今年11月争取州级职务。随着管理员为“万一”情况做准备，亚利桑那州可可尼诺县的埃斯利尔·穆斯塔表示，确保选举基本机制正确运行仍然是一项不容小觑的任务，这本身就可能具有挑战性。就他的情况而言，这意味着要准备一支骡子车队，以服务住在大峡谷底部的160名选民。
“They would plug in a few things, hit print and physically run the document over to a waiting judge.”Such scenarios remain very unlikely. Yet officials must also contend with election-denial activists, who routinely file nuisance public-records requests and challenges to voter registrations. In swing states such as Georgia, they have also managed to win positions on local boards, with some aiming for statewide office this November. As administrators prepare for “what if” scenarios, there remains the not insubstantial task of getting the basic mechanics of elections right, which can be challenging enough, says Eslir Musta of Arizona’s Coconino county. In his case, that means prepping a mule caravan to serve the 160 voters who live at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
只有半数美国人告诉民调机构，他们预期中期选举将是自由和公平的。无论哪一院的差距越小，11月份可被利用的不确定性就越大。诉讼和重新计票如今已成为势均力敌选举的常态。今年，参议院的控制权可能取决于一两个州，其中包括一些众所周知计票缓慢的州，例如阿拉斯加。漫长或有争议的计票过程要求候选人具备耐心和克制。
Just half of Americans tell pollsters they anticipate a free and fair midterms. The tighter the margin in either chamber, the more uncertainty there will be to exploit in November. Lawsuits and recounts are now standard in close races. This year, control of the Senate may come down to one or two states, including some that are famously slow to count, such as Alaska. A lengthy or contested count requires patience and restraint on the part of candidates.
这些并不是特朗普先生所具备的属性。■ 通过《美国简报》 — — 我们的每日时事通讯，快速分析最重要的政治新闻，以及《制衡》 — — 一份每周评论，检视美国民主的现状以及选民关心的议题，随时掌握美国政治动态。
Those are not attributes known to Mr Trump. ■ Stay on top of American politics with The US in brief, our daily newsletter with fast analysis of the most important political news, and Checks and Balance, a weekly note that examines the state of American democracy and the issues that matter to voters.