距离中期选举还有一周，民主党人坐立难安。每天都有新的担忧理由出现。司法部在最后关头对多个州的选举程序提起挑战；国民警卫队成员在华盛顿特区的一个选票投递箱前被拍照；唐纳德·特朗普总统对其盟友败选的巴西大选结果表示怀疑，祭出了他惯用的选举否认剧本。
With a week left till the midterm elections, Democrats are on edge. Every day brings some new reason for concern. The Department of Justice files last-minute challenges to election procedures several states National Guard members are photographed in front of a ballot drop box in Washington, D.C.
因此，美联社-诺克民调中心（AP-NORC）本月早些时候的一项民调发现，与2022年相比，坚信选票将被准确计数的民主党人比例下降了20个百分点，这并不令人意外。
President Donald Trump casts doubt on the results of a Brazilian election that his ally lost, using his old election denial playbook.
在这种环境下，一条民主党人指控触屏投票机将其选票“翻转”给共和党候选人的社交媒体帖子，很容易在网上引爆舆论。这一次，发帖人是已故乡村音乐传奇人物多莉·帕顿的妹妹斯特拉·帕顿，她称在田纳西州投票给参议员候选人时，不得不连点三次才改对选项。“别让他们操纵这场选举，”她写道。
It’s no wonder, then, that an AP-NORC poll earlier this month found a 20-point drop in the percentage of Democrats who were confident that votes would be counted accurately since 2022. In this environment, then, a social media post in which a Democrat alleges that a touchscreen voting machine flipped her vote to a Republican candidate is likely to catch fire online. This time, it came from Stella Parton, sister of the late musical legend Dolly who said she had to tap three times to correct her vote for senator in Tennessee.
我们以前见过这种情况。几乎每个选举周期，都会有人在触屏投票机上遇到糟糕体验并引发疯传——尤其是当这位选民属于在野党时。
“Don’t let them rig this election,” she wrote. We’ve been here before.
我能理解。触屏本身就让人天然感到紧张。我的短信总是输错几个字母，我在新式汽水机前不小心选到了健怡可乐，开车上高速时车载音响总播放错歌曲。这些已经够糟了。但想到我可能因为手滑误投给错误候选人，后果就严重得多。
Pretty much every election cycle, someone has a bad experience with a touchscreen voting machine and it goes viral — especially if it’s a voter from the party that is out of power. I get it. There’s something about touchscreens that’s inherently stressful as it is. My text messages are always just a few letters off, I accidentally got Diet Coke at the newfangled soda machine, and my car stereo keeps playing the wrong song when I’m on the highway. Those are bad enough.
然而，由此推断这就是“选举被操纵”的证据，未免跨度太大。事实上，这将是最笨拙的作弊方式之一。这一特定阴谋论在我看来向来荒诞。
But to think I might fat-finger my way into voting for the wrong candidate is far worse. It’s a leap, though, to go from that to the idea that this is proof of rigging the election. In fact, it would be one of the dumber ways to try that.
想想看。我知道我应该用更严谨的逻辑来核实这类事情，但这个特定的阴谋论在我看来一直很荒谬。问题在于屏幕校准不正确，这是一个容易解决的问题。
This particular conspiracy theory has always struck me as silly. Just think about it. I know I’m supposed to fact-check this sort of thing with more high-minded logic, but this particular conspiracy theory has always struck me as silly.
另一个让我担忧的原因是，触屏投票机确实存在一个实际问题，但它得到的关注度只是那些病毒式传播的“投票被篡改”帖子的一小部分。
The problem here is that the screen isn’t calibrated correctly, which is an easy fix.
问题在于，有些触屏投票机只将选票以电子形式存储，没有其他备份。这意味着如果以某种方式被黑客攻击，将无法证明。值得庆幸的是，选举官员几年前意识到这是个坏主意，现在几乎所有触屏投票机都配有纸质收据。如果你发现纸质收据与你的预期投票不符，可以立即告知投票站工作人员。这些收据也可以在后来的重新计票或选举审计中进行人工核对。
The other reason it bothers me is that there is an actual problem with touchscreen voting machines, and it gets a fraction of the attention of these viral “vote switching” posts. The problem is that there are some touchscreen voting machines where your vote is stored electronically — and nowhere else. That means if it was hacked somehow, there would be no way to prove it. Thankfully, election officials realized a few years ago that this was a bad idea, and nearly all touchscreen voting machines now come with a paper receipt. If you notice that your paper receipt doesn’t match your intended vote, you can tell a poll worker right then and there.
问题几乎解决了——根据“核实投票”组织汇编的数据，只有1.3%的投票机是没有纸质收据的触屏机。（专业术语是无选民可核实纸质审计追踪的直接记录电子投票机，即无VVPAT的DRE。）之所以还存在这些机器，是因为投票机价格昂贵，通常由地方政府采购。
The receipts can also be manually checked during a recount or election audit later. Problem solved — almost. According to data compiled by Verified Voting, only 1.3% of voting machines are touchscreens without a paper receipt. (The technical term is direct-recording electronic voting machine without a voter-verified paper audit trail, or DRE without VVPAT.)
尽管如此，大多数州已经更换了这些机器。可能还有几台潜伏在某个农村县，但真正仍大量使用这类机器的只有一个州：路易斯安那州。
The remainder exists because voting machines are expensive, and they’re usually paid for at the local level. Still, most states have replaced these machines already.
事实上，路易斯安那州的每一台投票机都是无纸质收据的DRE。值得肯定的是，州立法者似乎已认识到问题并通过法律更换机器，但这是一个进展缓慢、价格不确定的过程。尽管如此，该州至今未解决此问题，理应成为巨大的耻辱。
There may be a couple lurking in a rural county somewhere, but there’s really only one state that still has a lot of them in use: Louisiana. In fact, every single voting machine in Louisiana is a DRE without a paper receipt. To their credit, state lawmakers seem to have recognized the problem and passed laws to replace the machines, but it’s been a slow-moving process with an uncertain price tag.
所以，下次当你看到一段声称选票被篡改的病毒式传播视频时，你可以放心，那只是触摸屏校准不良，而且由于有那些纸质收据，它无法改变选举结果。当然，路易斯安那州除外。
Still, it should be a massive source of embarrassment to the state that they haven’t fixed this yet. So the next time you see a viral video claiming that votes are being changed, you can be reassured that it’s just a poorly calibrated touchscreen and can’t change the outcome of the election thanks to those paper receipts.
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