2026年11月2日 美国东部时间上午5:00 Miles Parks 2026年8月4日，密歇根州迪尔伯恩，一块指示牌指引居民前往投票站。
November 2, 2026 5:00 AM ET Miles Parks A sign directs residents to a polling place in Dearborn, Mich., on Aug. 4.
Scott Olson/Getty Images 据蒂娜·巴顿说，在摇摆州和非摇摆州管理选举有一个巨大的区别。那就是出错时会发生什么。
Scott Olson/Getty Images There's one big difference, Tina Barton says, between running an election in a battleground state and a non-battleground. It's what happens when there are mistakes.
“如果发生人为错误，在媒体上很容易解释清楚，不会成为新闻，”巴顿说。“但在摇摆州发生人为错误，突然之间就可能演变成一场大规模阴谋。”巴顿对此深有体会。
"If a human error happens, it's easily explained in the press and it's not a story," Barton says. "You have a human error in a battleground state and all of a sudden it can become a massive conspiracy." Barton would know.
2020年，她以罗切斯特希尔斯市书记官的身份监督选举。选举夜当晚，她的办公室因第一份非正式缺席投票文件最初似乎未发送成功，而误将该文件发送了两次。
In 2020, she oversaw elections as city clerk of Rochester Hills, Mich. On election night, her office mistakenly sent an unofficial absentee vote file twice because the first one didn't initially appear to send.
在由数万名工作人员运作的全国性选举过程中，此类错误每个选举周期都会发生。投票机未插电。投票站工作人员睡过头没听到闹钟，导致投票站未能按时开放。选民被发错选票。
Such mistakes happen every election cycle in a national process run by tens of thousands of human beings. A machine isn't plugged in. A poll worker sleeps through their alarm clock and doesn't open a precinct on time. Someone gets handed the wrong ballot.
在巴顿的案例中，该问题并未影响实际选票，且在第二天的计票中已得到纠正。但这无论如何改变了她的生活。
In Barton's case, the issue didn't impact actual votes, and it was corrected in the tally the following day. But it changed her life regardless.
共和党全国委员会主席指责她的办公室不当地将选票算给了民主党人，巴顿随即收到大量死亡威胁，其中一条语音留言称，因为她“欺诈剥夺了美国一场真正的选举”，她应该遭受“割喉之刑”。五年多过去了，无论好坏，密歇根、佐治亚、亚利桑那等摇摆州的选举官员已或多或少习惯了这种程度的压力和审视。
The chairwoman of the Republican National Committee accused her office of improperly giving votes to Democrats, and Barton received a rush of death threats, including a voicemail saying she deserved a "throat to the knife" because she had "frauded out America of a real election." More than half a decade later, for better or worse, election officials in swing states like Michigan, Georgia and Arizona are more used to that level of pressure and scrutiny.
然而在今年的中期选举中，由于将决定美国众议院和参议院控制权的竞选分布在全国各地，爱荷华、阿拉斯加、纽约、堪萨斯等地的地方官员可能首次发现自己置身于全国聚光灯下。
In this year's midterms, however, because the races that will decide control of the U.S. House and Senate are spread around the country, local officials in places like Iowa, Alaska, New York and Kansas may find themselves in the national spotlight for the first time.
克里斯·麦金是德克萨斯州县选举官员协会执行主任。他在今年早些时候接受NPR采访时表示，德克萨斯州在过去近50年里一直是可靠的共和党州，这意味着竞争性选举较少，联邦选举周期中选举官员面临的压力也较小。
Chris McGinn is executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials. In an interview with NPR earlier this year, he noted that Texas has been a reliable Republican state for the better part of 50 years which has meant fewer competitive elections and less pressure on voting officials in federal election cycles.
麦金工作的很大一部分是为书记员做准备，以防这种情况今年发生改变，因为该州的美国参议院选举可能决定该院的权力平衡。该席位的共和党候选人曾试图帮助特朗普总统推翻其2020年大选失利。
A huge part of McGinn's job has been preparing clerks for the possibility that could change this year, considering the U.S. Senate race there could decide the balance of power in that chamber. The Republican nominee for that seat sought to help President Trump overturn his 2020 election loss.
“我们仍处于一种认为‘这不会发生在我们身上’的状态——‘那发生在其他地方，’”麦金说。“我半开玩笑但又很现实地对成员们宣讲的一件事是，我们不想成为2000年的佛罗里达州。”总体而言，选举官员面临的威胁环境似乎比2020年之后那段时期要平静。
"We're still in a state of not thinking it can happen to us — 'That happens in other places,'" McGinn said. "One of the things that I jokingly but realistically preach to our members is we don't want to be Florida in 2000." On a whole, the threat environment for voting officials seems calmer than it did in the period following 2020.
温迪·林克是佛罗里达州棕榈滩县选举主管，该县今年包括部分摇摆国会选区，她说她的办公室仍然经常收到她所谓的“情书”，但她对自身安全的担忧不如工作中不同时期那么严重了。
Wendy Link — the supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County, Fla., a county that includes part of a toss-up congressional district this year — says her office still regularly gets "love letters," as she calls them, but she's not as worried for own safety as she has been at different points in the job.
“我们收到电子邮件说，你知道，‘我们会派军队来逮捕你，你将在关塔那摩湾度过时光，’”林克告诉NPR。“所以我喜欢读一些邮件吗？不。我认为其中一些明显是为了恐吓我吗？是的。但我是否正在联系并申请安保人员？不。”但前密歇根州书记员巴顿担心，如果中期选举结果胶着，一切可能再次升级。她现在是安全稳妥选举委员会的副主席，该委员会帮助地方官员为各种最坏情况制定和准备应对方案。
"We get emails saying, you know, 'We're going to send our army to arrest you, you'll be spending your time in Guantanamo Bay,'" Link told NPR. "So do I love reading some of the emails? No. Do I think some of them are clearly intended to intimidate me? Yes. But am I reaching out and asking for a security detail? No." But Barton, the former Michigan clerk, worries it could all escalate again if the midterms are close. She's now vice president of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections, which helps local officials game-plan and prepare for different worst case scenarios.
“这可能发生在红州，也可能发生在蓝州。争议可能会找上你，”巴顿说。“只需要一些投票设备出故障、选票卡住、网站瘫痪。”研究选举错误信息的研究人员表示，大多数虚假叙事通常源于巴顿提到的这类真实事件，随后被有影响力的人或政客利用，虚假暗示这些事件是故意发生的，或规模比实际更大。
"It can happen whether you're a red state or a blue state. Controversy can find you," Barton said. "All it takes is some ballot equipment going down, a problem with ballots jamming, a website going down." Researchers who study election misinformation say most false narratives usually emerge from real events like those Barton mentioned which are then seized on by influencers or politicians to falsely imply they're happening intentionally or at a wider scale than they actually are.
今年，CSSE主导的培训次数比2024年翻了一番——这既是对特朗普政府在选举中行动的新担忧，也反映出对“摇摆州”含义的更广泛理解。当巴顿与竞争选区的官员交谈时，她的信息很简单。“我对他们所有人说，你们最好拿出十二分的精神，”巴顿说。2026年中期选举投票报道
This year CSSE doubled the number of trainings the organization led when compared to 2024 — a sign of new concerns around the Trump administration's actions in elections but also an expanded understanding of what it means to be in a battleground state. When Barton talks to officials in competitive districts, her message is simple. "I've told them all, you better be on your game," Barton said. 2026 midterms voting stories