随着11月3日中期选举的临近，许多州的选民已经在投票。RYAN MURPHY/AFP 本文根据8月首次报道的一篇报道进行了更新。
Voters are already casting votes in aa number of states ahead of the midterm election on Nov. 3. RYAN MURPHY/AFP This story has been updated from a story first reported in August.
在这个中期选举周期中，特朗普政府出于执法目的收集了数百万份各州的选民记录，努力在全国范围内限制邮寄投票，拒绝了邀请国际选举观察员的惯例，并多次提出向投票地点派遣武装联邦人员的想法。特朗普政府将其各项行动大体上描述为一种努力，旨在总统标志性的选举改革法案——《拯救美国法案》（SAVE America Act）在共和党领导的参议院受挫后，确保美国民主制度的完整性。
This midterm cycle, the Trump administration has gathered millions of state voter records for law enforcement purposes, endeavored to restrict mail-in voting nationwide declined the typical practice of inviting international election observers and repeatedly raised the idea of dispatching armed federal personnel to voting locations The Trump administration broadly describes its actions as an effort to ensure the integrity of the American democratic system after the president's signature election overhaul effort, the SAVE America Act, foundered in the GOP-led Senate.
白宫女发言人劳伦·比斯（Lauren Bis）在10月份给美国国家公共电台（NPR）的一份声明中表示：“特朗普总统为确保我们拥有自由和公正的选举，做出了比任何其他总统都多的努力。当极端民主党人和媒体继续对选民欺诈的担忧不屑一顾时，特朗普政府正在采取果断行动来保护我们的选举，包括起诉选举犯罪、加强选举基础设施安全，以及保护易受伤害的选民免受欺诈和胁迫。”
In a statement to NPR in October, White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis said that "President Trump has done more than any other President to ensure we have free and fair elections. While extreme Democrats and the media continue to dismiss concerns about voter fraud, the Trump Administration is taking decisive action to protect our elections including prosecuting election crimes, strengthening election infrastructure security, and protecting vulnerable voters from fraud and coercion."
今年夏天，美国国家公共电台采访了十几个人，他们组成了他们所描述的选举保护工作组。这是由民主党议员及其工作人员、选举诉讼律师、学者和无党派的良治组织共同协调开展的努力。
This summer, NPR spoke to more than a dozen people who've formed what they describe as an election protection task force. It's a coordinated effort between Democratic lawmakers and their staffers, election litigators, scholars and nonpartisan good governance organizations.
参与者担心，政府将把美国选举基础设施中正常但鲜为人知的部分（包括加利福尼亚州和阿拉斯加州缓慢的计票工作）指为欺诈行为的证据。他们还表示，政府长期以来一直致力于破坏公众对安全透明的选举系统的信任，并且在没有宪法授权的情况下，将行政分支插手到了由各州主导的选举过程中。
Those involved worry that the administration will point to normal, but poorly understood, parts of American election infrastructure, including slow vote counting in California and Alaska, as evidence of fraudulent behavior. They also say that the administration has long worked to undermine public trust in a secure and transparent election system and has, without constitutional authority, inserted the executive branch into the state-led election process.
“民主向前”是一个表示通过诉讼、政策和公众教育来致力于推进民主和社会进步的法律类非营利组织，该组织撰文称，特朗普政府的努力“利用了这位总统长期存在且毫无根据的阴谋论，以追求发现所谓的‘选举欺诈’。这些行动是鲁莽的，并有可能恐吓和剥夺选民的权利。”尽管特别工作组成员承认，国会大厦休息室内并没有隐藏着什么神奇的“保护民主”按钮，但他们都强调了议员作为信息传递者和组织者的力量。
Democracy Forward — a legal nonprofit that says it works to advance democracy and social progress through litigation, policy and public education — has written that the Trump administration's efforts "harness the president's longstanding and baseless conspiracy theories in pursuit of discovering so-called 'election fraud.' These actions are reckless and run the risk of intimidating and disenfranchising voters." Even as task force members acknowledged there is no magic "protect democracy" button tucked away in a Capitol cloakroom, they each emphasized the power of legislators as messengers and organizers.
他们的首要目标是让公众及其州和地方的对口官员做好准备，以便在必要时采取行动，确保选举结果得到尊重。
Their primary goal is to to prepare the public and their state and local counterparts to act when necessary to ensure election results are honored.
特朗普在7月份于白宫东厅发表的一场演讲中奠定了中期选举的叙事基础，他表示：“我们即将迎来非常重要的选举。我们希望这些选举是诚实正直的。”他在演讲中呼吁国会通过《拯救美国法案》，该法案除其他措施外，将要求选民在选民登记时出示公民身份证明，并在投票前出示带照片的身份证件。
Establishing the midterm narrative "We have very important elections coming up," Trump said in a July address from the East Room of the White House. "We want those elections to be honest." He used the speech to call on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would, among other measures, require voters to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote and a photo ID before they can cast a ballot.
他说：“除非你想作弊，否则这有多难做到？你之所以不这么做的唯一原因，就是你想作弊，因为你的政策太糟糕了，你的候选人也太可悲了，以至于你用其他任何方式都无法逃脱惩罚或当选。”
"How easy is that to do, unless you want to cheat? The only reason you wouldn't do it is you want to cheat because your policies are so bad, and your candidates are so pathetic that you can't get away or can't get elected any other way," he said.
民主党特别工作组的成员表示，这些言论应被理解为是一种试图让选民欺诈——研究和调查发现这种情况极其罕见——显得貌似合理的努力。
Members of the Democratic task force said the remarks should be understood as an effort to make voter fraud — which studies and investigations have found to be vanishingly rare — seem plausible.
“捍卫民主”（Protect Democracy）是一个跨意识形态组织，该组织表示其利用诉讼、倡导和研究来保护美国选举。贾斯廷·维尔（Justin Vail）是该组织的一名负责人，也是该工作组的成员。他此前曾担任总统乔·拜登的特别助理，负责民主事务。他告诉美国国家公共电台（NPR），特朗普的演讲是在企图对11月的选举播下怀疑的种子，这是他的组织所描述的三步策略的第一步：欺骗、破坏和否定。
Justin Vail, a leader at Protect Democracy, a cross-ideological group that says it uses litigation, advocacy and research to protect American elections is a member of the task force. He previously served as a special assistant to President Joe Biden, working on democracy issues. He told NPR that Trump's speech was an effort to sow doubt in November's elections, a first step in what his organization characterizes as a three-step playbook: deceive, disrupt and deny.
“首先，他欺骗美国人，捏造关于选民欺诈和我们选举安全的不实指控，”维尔说。“其次，他试图破坏州和地方对选举的正常管理，”他接着说，“企图迫使它们制定威胁合格选民投票权的政策。如果这些还不够，特朗普已准备好直接否定他不喜欢的选举结果。”在法庭上的斗争 知名选举诉讼律师、工作组成员马克·埃利亚斯（Marc Elias）将选举保护工作描述为一个连续的过程。
"First, he deceives Americans, manufacturing false claims about voter fraud and the security of our elections," Vail said. "Second, he seeks to disrupt the normal state and local management of elections," he continued, "in an attempt to coerce them to enact policies that threaten the eligible voters' access. And if that's all not enough, Trump is prepared to outright deny election results that he doesn't like." The fight in courts Marc Elias, the prominent election litigator and a member of the task force, describes the election protection effort on a continuum.
“它始于选民登记，然后人们投票，接着是选举日，”埃利亚斯说。“然后进行选票计票，进行地方认证，最后是就职。”
"It begins with voter registration, then you have people voting, then you have Election Day," Elias said. "You have tabulation of ballots, you have local certification, and ultimately you have seating."
“历史表明，唐纳德·特朗普愿意将权力武器化，针对这一过程的所有环节，”埃利亚斯说。“这不是一件等到选举颠覆发生之后再去应对的事情。”埃利亚斯的律所一直走在针对政府的选举相关诉讼的前沿。他说，他的团队一直在打击他所认为的持续选举干预行为的第一阶段。他们已经参与了数十起跨越各州的诉讼。
"History has shown that Donald Trump is willing to weaponize power against all points of that process," Elias said. "This is not something that we wait until election subversion has taken place." Elias' firm has been at the leading edge of election-related litigation against the administration. He said his team has been combating what he views as the first stage of an ongoing election interference effort. They have been involved in dozens of lawsuits spanning every state.
一场以邮寄选票为核心的主要诉讼展开了。特朗普下令邮政局仅将邮寄选票投递给这些名单上的登记选民——这一举措最终被最高法院叫停。
A primary fight centered on mail-in ballots. Trump ordered the Postal Service to deliver mail-in ballots only to registered voters on those lists — an effort that was ultimately halted by the Supreme Court.
国土安全部也已经花了数月时间收集各州选民登记册，该部门称其正在利用这些登记册来查找非法登记投票的非公民。
The Department of Homeland Security has also worked for months to gather state voter rolls, which it says it is using to find noncitizens who are illegally registered to vote.
根据威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校州民主研究倡议组织（State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison）的统计，该政府已提起31起寻求获取州选民数据的联邦诉讼。各州大都拒绝配合，理由是隐私法以及宪法明确将选举管理权委任给各州，并受国会监督。
A tally by the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has tallied 31 federal lawsuits from the administration seeking state voter data. States have largely refused to comply, citing privacy laws and the Constitution, which expressly delegates election administration to the states subject to congressional oversight.
无党派非营利组织“共同原因”（Common Cause）在法庭上对司法部的选民数据收集计划提出了挑战，称其违反了联邦法律。2026年10月9日，一个联邦地区法院裁定，该政策超出了司法部的权限，属于任意和专断行为，并违反了联邦法律。
Common Cause, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, challenged the Justice Department's voter data collection program as violating federal law in court. On October 9, 2026, a federal district court ruled that the policy exceeds the Justice Department's authority, is arbitrary and capricious, and violates federal law.
法院在全国范围内废除了该政策，不仅影响了司法部从那些进行抵制的州获取数据的努力，也影响了那些已经自愿配合的州。司法部已将该裁决上诉至美国哥伦比亚特区巡回上诉法院。
The court vacated the policy nationwide, impacting not only the Justice Department's efforts to get data from the states that have resisted as well as states that had already voluntarily complied. The Justice Department has appealed the decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.
国会的局限性 在行使硬实力能力有限的情况下，民主党议员通过其他方式行使了权力。主要是，当选的民主党人专注于充当其参与选举管理运作的州及地方同行，与参与确保该过程完整性的善治团体之间的联结纽带。
Circuit. The limits of Congress Limited in their ability to exercise hard power, Democratic lawmakers have exercised power in other ways. Primarily, elected Democrats are focused on being the connective tissue between their state and local counterparts involved in the mechanics of administering elections and the good governance groups involved in ensuring the integrity of that process.
参议员丽莎·布朗特·罗切斯特（民主党-特拉华州）8月对美国全国公共广播电台（NPR）表示：“我们认识到选举是在地方层面、在州层面进行的，我们希望能够——并且将继续——与我们在履行职责时的州级当局进行合作。”
"We recognize that elections are run at the local level, at the state level, and we want to be able to partner — and continue to partner — with our state authorities as they carry out their duties," said Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Del., told NPR in August.
她表示：“但我们也知道，特别是在此时此刻，有一些公民社会组织、律师和社区领袖正齐聚一堂，表示我们将各自尽一份力，以确保这次选举安全、可靠、有力，投票站工作人员受到保护，我们的选民能够走出去投票。”
"But we also know that, especially at this moment, there are civil society organizations, there are attorneys, there are community leaders who are all coming together and saying we're each going to do our part to ensure that this election is safe, reliable, strong, that workers at the polls are protected, that our voters can get out there and vote," she said.
尽管如此，伊利亚斯认为，如果国会能够发出统一的两党声音，本可以在保护选举方面发挥更大的作用，但“它没有这样做，因为迈克·约翰逊和约翰·图恩没有这样做，”他说道，这里分别指的是众议院和参议院的共和党高层。
Still, Elias believes Congress could play a larger role in protecting elections if it was able to speak with a unified, bipartisan voice, but "it's not doing that because Mike Johnson and John Thune aren't doing it," he said, referring to the top Republicans in the House and Senate, respectively.
伊利亚斯说：“试想一下，如果由众议院本身、美国参议院本身提交一份法律简报，告诉法院国会正在极力捍卫其对选举的权力。我认为，坦率地说，这将是一件极其有用且会产生实际影响的事情。”共和党议员普遍呼应了总统关于选举舞弊的说法，领导层几乎没有表现出反击其与选举相关行为的意愿。相反，国会共和党人将大部分精力集中在试图通过《拯救美国法案》上。
"Imagine," Elias said, "a brief that was submitted by the House of Representatives itself, the U.S. Senate itself, telling the courts that Congress was jealously guarding its authority" over elections. "That, I think, would frankly be an incredibly useful thing and would have a real impact." GOP legislators broadly echo the president's election fraud narratives, and leaders have shown little desire to push back on his election-related actions. Congressional Republicans have instead focused much of their attention on trying to pass the SAVE America Act.
尽管民主党处于少数党地位，但他们确实拥有一些监督工具。众议院拥有一个可以追溯到20世纪80年代的活跃的工作人员选举观察员项目，而今年将首次设立参议院选举观察员项目。
Despite their minority status, Democrats do have access to some oversight tools. While the House of Representatives has an active staff election observer program that dates to the 1980s, this year will see the first-ever Senate election observer program.
两党议员指定的工作人员可以被派往观察投票和计票地点，其目标是让议员了解情况，以便开展监督工作，并在出现争议结果时应对。那些自愿参与的人将不会为候选人拉票、参与计票，也不会干涉选民或选举工作人员。
Staff designated by lawmakers of both parties can be dispatched to observe voting and tabulating locations, with the goal of keeping lawmakers informed for oversight work and in case of contested results. Those who volunteer to participate will not advocate for candidates, participate in vote counting or interfere with voters or election staff.
负责监督选举管理的参议院委员会民主党首席议员帕迪拉在宣布该项目的声明中表示：“我致力于使用一切工具来保护自由公正的选举，全新的参议院选举观察员项目将做到这一点。”
"I am committed to using every tool to protect free and fair elections, and the new Senate Election Observer Program will do just that," Padilla, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees election administration, said in a statement announcing the program.
参议院民主党多数党领袖舒默和帕迪拉本月宣布，已有100多名工作人员同意参与。该委员会主席、肯塔基州共和党参议员米奇·麦康奈尔尚未就共和党工作人员是否会参与表态。
Senate Democratic Majority Leader Schumer and Padilla announced this month that more than 100 staff had agreed to participate. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who chairs the committee, has not addressed whether Republican staffers would participate.
接下来会发生什么 工作组的一些成员现在正通过预先写好的法律简报以及他们认为属于高风险地区的关键联系人名册，为最坏的情况做准备。他们的名单包括以下区域：选举官员可能呼应了总统的否认选举言论的地区、预计结果接近或计票缓慢的地区，以及特朗普过去曾重点关注的地区，例如加利福尼亚州、伊利诺伊州和纽约州。
What comes next Some members of the task force are now prepared for worst-case scenarios with prewritten legal briefs and a Rolodex of key contacts in places they believe to be high risk. Their lists include areas in which election officials may have echoed the president's election denial rhetoric, where results are expected to be close or slow to count, and where Trump has focused scrutiny in the past, like California, Illinois and New York.
几位成员指出，在过去的一年里，特朗普曾试图大幅扩大联邦政府对选举的直接介入，并声称对选举管理拥有前所未有的权力。
Several members noted that over the last year, Trump has attempted to dramatically expand direct federal involvement in elections and asserted unprecedented authority over election administration.
他在去年8月于“真相社交”上写道：“记住，各州在计票和汇总选票方面仅仅是联邦政府的‘代理人’。为了我们国家的利益，它们必须听从以美国总统为代表的联邦政府的指示。”采访过多位选举法专家的本报道指出，这些专家均未参与为国会议员或候选人提供咨询，他们普遍认为总统在选举管理中没有任何角色，宪法已将该权力明确授予各州和国会。
"Remember, the States are merely an 'agent' for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes," he wrote on Truth Social last August. "They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do." Multiple election law experts consulted for this story, none of whom are involved in advising congressional lawmakers or candidates, broadly agreed that the president has no role in election administration, which the Constitution delegates explicitly to the states and Congress.
尽管看到了种种风险，但许多参与国会民主党人选举筹备工作的人士仍感到乐观，认为美国公众的声音最终将会胜出。
Despite the risks they see, many of those involved in congressional Democrats' election preparations felt optimistic that, in the end, the voice of the American public would win out.
曾任拜登政府副总检察长、现任纽约大学法学院法律与公共信托中心主任的瓦尼塔·古普塔就是这些乐观的声音之一。
Vanita Gupta, formerly Biden's associate attorney general and now director of the Center for Law and Public Trust at New York University's law school, is among those optimistic voices.
古普塔8月对美国国家公共电台表示：“过去一年里，数百个无党派组织一直在做准备，尽我们所能保护选举的公正性。从现在走到新一届国会的过程，可能比我们任何人所希望的都要混乱，或许会充满比我们想象的更多的诉讼和组织动员，但只要人们不把投票权视为理所当然，我们就将举行自由公正的选举。”2026年中期选举
"Hundreds of nonpartisan organizations have been preparing over the past year to do everything in our power to protect the integrity of our elections," Gupta told NPR in August. "Maybe the process of getting from here to a new Congress may be messier than any of us would like, perhaps filled with a lot more litigation and organizing than we might have thought was necessary, but we are going to have free and fair elections so long as people don't take for granted their right to vote." 2026 midterms