唐纳德·特朗普过去六年一直试图证明民主党通过让非公民大量投票来窃取选举，但屡试屡败。有大量证据表明这种情况并不存在。但不难理解，为什么大多数美国人对总统会接受下个月中期选举结果缺乏信心——尤其是如果共和党惨败的话。
Donald Trump has spent the past six years trying and failing to prove that Democrats are stealing elections by letting noncitizens vote in big numbers. There’s a mountain of evidence showing that doesn’t happen. But it’s easy to understand why most Americans have little confidence the president will accept the results of next month’s midterms — especially if Republicans get shellacked.
“如果结果不利于他，他就必须往上面泼脏水，就这样，”一位选民在《华盛顿邮报》、ABC新闻和益普索的联合民调中告诉民调员。“他每次输了都向我们展示了这一点。”然而这一次，特朗普似乎明白，要让人们接受他的阴谋论思维会更难。毕竟，民调显示，大多数美国人也相信中期选举结果将是准确的，他们担心的不是舞弊，而是合格选民被不公平地取消资格。因此，这位一贯以表演者自居的总统，回归了他最擅长的领域：搞一场抓人眼球的表演。
“He has to throw dirt on it if it doesn’t come out his way, period,” as one voter told pollsters with the Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos. “He’s shown us that every time he loses.”Yet this time around, Trump seems to understand that he’ll have a harder time getting buy-in for his conspiratorial thinking. After all, polls show that most Americans also believe the results of the midterms will be accurate, and are less worried about fraud than about eligible voters being unfairly disqualified. So the president, ever the entertainer, has returned to what he does best: putting on an attention-grabbing show.
仅在过去几周里，困惑的绿卡持有者在黎明前被从家中拖走，并被指控非法登记投票。全副武装的联邦特工走访社区，询问居民的移民身份以及他们是否曾经投票。轰动一时的移民突袭行动清空了拉丁裔农业社区的街道，这些社区——当然只是巧合——正好位于竞争激烈的国会选区。
In just the past few weeks, bewildered green card holders have been dragged from their homes before dawn and charged with illegally registering to vote. Armed federal agents have canvassed neighborhoods, demanding to know the immigration status of residents and whether they’ve ever voted. Splashy immigration raids have emptied the streets of Latino farming communities, many of which are — coincidentally, of course — located in congressional districts with hotly contested races.
这一切是否能说服更多美国人相信特朗普关于大规模选民欺诈的毫无根据的指控，仍有待观察。但正如加州州长加文·纽森所言，这场大戏的许多场景都在加州实地拍摄，这本应“让每个美国人感到恐惧万分”。加州为传播虚假信息、破坏对选举制度的信任提供了一个无与伦比的平台。由于其规模、影响力、人口结构、深蓝的政治倾向，以及在美国人想象中近乎卡通化的地位，这里没有更大的舞台、更响亮的麦克风。
Whether any of this convinces more Americans to believe Trump’s unfounded claims of rampant voter fraud remains to be seen. But that a lot of this show is being filmed on location in California should, as Governor Gavin Newsom has put it, “scare the hell out of every American.”California provides an unparalleled platform for spreading disinformation to undermine trust in the electoral system. Because of its size, influence, demographics, deep-blue politics and almost cartoonish place in the American imagination, there is no bigger stage or louder microphone.
再加上加州严重依赖邮寄选票，通常需要数周才能完成计票，这可能会让关键众议院选区的结果悬而未决，特朗普将能在11月3日投票结束后很长一段时间内，继续利用该州作为叙事的陪衬。“噪音水平升高是有原因的，”非党派组织选举创新与研究中心执行主任大卫·贝克尔在与记者的电话会议上表示，“这是因为总统实际影响选举政策的能力……为零。”
Add to that California’s heavy reliance on mail-in ballots, which typically take weeks to count and could leave the results of critical House races in limbo, and Trump will be able to keep using the state as a narrative foil long after the polls close on Nov. 3. “There’s a reason that the noise levels are turning up,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research, said on a call with reporters. “It’s because the ability to actually affect election policy has been … zero for the president.”
为此，上周联邦探员身穿战术背心、神态强硬，聚集在洛杉矶附近几名绿卡持有者的住所外，摄像机全程记录。在配有背景音乐、上传至司法部社交媒体账号的视频中，至少两名男子被戴着手铐带走，身上仍穿着睡衣。其中一人的女儿向《洛杉矶时报》哭诉，术后康复中的父亲被“像狗一样”从家中拖走。“他们试图在社会中植入恐惧，”她说。这很难让人反驳。
To that end, the cameras were rolling this past week as federal agents, looking tough in tactical vests, converged on the homes of several green card holders near Los Angeles. In video, set to music and uploaded to the Justice Department’s social media accounts, at least two men were shown being led away in handcuffs, still in their pajamas. The daughter of one of them lamented to the Los Angeles Times that her father, recovering from surgery, had been pulled out of his home “like he was a dog.”“They’re trying to instill fear in society,” she said. It’s hard to disagree.
代理副司法部长特伦特·麦科特态度强硬，对记者表示：“只要非公民在联邦选举中投票，司法部绝不会视而不见。”问题在于，特朗普政府正在上演的这出大戏与现实几乎毫无相似之处。迄今为止，加利福尼亚州仅有28人因选举相关罪行（如非法登记投票）被起诉。考虑到该州约有2300万登记选民，这一比例仅为0.0001%。正如加州总检察长罗布·邦塔所言，这只是“九牛一毛”。但这出戏还得继续演下去。
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter was unapologetic, telling reporters: “This Department of Justice will not look the other way while noncitizens vote in federal elections.”The problem is that this show the Trump administration is putting on bears little resemblance to reality. So far, just 28 people in California have been charged with election-related crimes, such as illegally registering to vote. Given that there are about 23 million registered voters in the state, that works out to just 0.0001%. “A drop in the bucket,” as California Attorney General Rob Bonta put it. But the show must go on.
洛杉矶联邦检察官办公室第一助理检察官比尔·埃萨伊利——洛杉矶地区的最高联邦检察官——坚称，在他所谓的“保护选举行动”（或我给它起的工作标题：“最后一次制止窃选”）下，还会有更多逮捕行动。
First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli, the top federal prosecutor in LA, insists that more arrests are coming under his so-called “Operation Protect the Vote” (or the working title I’ve given it: “Stop the Steal This One Last Time”).
埃萨伊利还坚称，迄今为止寥寥无几的逮捕数字并不意味着加州不存在大规模选民欺诈。“这不是阴谋论，”他最近对记者说，“这不是捏造的东西。”相反，埃萨伊利指向国土安全部本月早些时候标记为“极有可能是非公民”的2万名选民名单。在该州最高选举官员可预见地拒绝了其要求——搁置名单上任何人投出的邮寄选票——后，政府随即起诉了洛杉矶县和加利福尼亚州。
Essayli also insists that the paltry number of arrests to date doesn’t mean there’s no widespread voter fraud in California. “This is not a conspiracy theory,” he recently told reporters. “This is not made-up stuff.”Instead, Essayli points to the list of 20,000 voters the Department of Homeland Security flagged as “likely noncitizens” earlier this month. The administration then sued Los Angeles County and the state of California after top election officials predictably rebuffed its demands to set aside mail-in ballots cast by anyone on that list.
“联邦政府从未阐明怀疑所列人员为非公民的依据——甚至未以任何确定程度予以确认，”加州州务卿雪莉·韦伯在致麦科特的信中写道。
“Nowhere has the federal government clarified the basis for suspecting — not even confirming with any level of certainty — the listed individuals are noncitizens,” California Secretary of State Shirley Weber wrote McCotter.
起初，加利福尼亚州选举官员甚至拒绝查看特朗普政府提供的名单，因为该名单存储在一个可疑的、受密码保护的U盘上，不被视为“安全介质”。但根据本周提交的一份法庭文件，洛杉矶县一名官员承认，该县已对这2万名选民中的约200人进行了初步分析。结果发现，其中超过一半——112人——甚至未登记注册投票，也未收到中期选举选票。而其中71%的人从未投票过。
At first, California election officials refused to even look at the Trump administration’s list, given that it was provided on a sketchy, password-protected thumb drive that wasn’t considered to be “a secure medium.”But in a court filing this past week, an LA County official acknowledged that it had conducted a preliminary analysis of about 200 of the 20,000 voters. It found that more than half — 112 — weren’t even registered to vote and hadn’t received ballots for the midterms. And 71% of them have never voted.
这与特朗普政府在其他州的惨淡记录一致。例如在内华达州，其认定的约1.6万名“非公民选民”最终全都被证实是美国公民。但正如节目必须继续一样，诉讼也必须继续进行。
This tracks with the Trump administration’s dismal record in other states. In Nevada, for example, all of the roughly 16,000 people it identified as noncitizen voters turned out to be American citizens. But, like the show, the lawsuits too must go on.
司法部已请求联邦上诉法院跳过下级法院，直接审理其起诉加利福尼亚州和洛杉矶县的案件。听证会定于下周举行。随着全州提前投票逐步展开，麦科特威胁要起诉那些“明知故犯地统计联邦机构认定的非公民投出的选票”的选举官员，将他们视为“联邦罪行的教唆犯和帮凶”。与此同时，埃萨伊利继续在X平台上与纽森及其他渴望展示反特朗普资历的民主党人互怼。
The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to leapfrog a lower court to weigh in on its case against California and LA County. A hearing is scheduled for this coming week. And as early voting ramps up across the state, McCotter has threatened to prosecute elections officials who “knowingly tabulate ballots cast by individuals identified by federal agencies as noncitizens,” considering them “aiders and abettors to a federal crime.”Essayli, meanwhile, continues to spend his days trading barbs on X with Newsom and other Democrats eager to show off their anti-Trump bona fides.
显然，特朗普已决定以加利福尼亚州为典型，试图将更大的聚光灯投向其阴谋论，以使其看起来更可信。尽管这可能颇具娱乐性，但选民不应上当受骗。
It’s clear that Trump has decided to make an example out of California, in hopes of putting a bigger spotlight on his conspiracy theories to try to make them seem more credible. Entertaining though it may be, voters shouldn’t fall for it.