Why Is Trump So Afraid of American Voters?
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Rubio Restricts U.S. Criticism of Tainted Foreign Elections
A State Department cable telling officials to avoid comments on the “fairness or integrity” of most elections continues a U.S. turn away from promoting democratic values abroad.The State Department will sharply restrict its commentary on the legitimacy of foreign elections to “rare” occasions, according to a new directive from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that continues the Trump administration’s turn away from promoting democracy abroad.In an official cable to diplomatic and consular posts on Thursday, Mr. Rubio said that public comments on foreign elections “should be brief, focused on congratulating the winning candidate and, when appropriate, noting shared foreign policy interests.”Such messages, the agency memo added, “should avoid opining on the fairness or integrity of an electoral process, its legitimacy, or the democratic values of the country in question.” The directive applied to the department’s domestic offices and foreign posts, Mr. Rubio said.The New York Times obtained the text of the cable, which was reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.It has long been standard practice for the U.S. government to call out foreign elections tainted by fraud, intimidation and other tactics. Doing so puts pressure on corrupt or unethical governments, encourages democratic opposition movements and bolsters America’s moral standing, diplomats say.As it had done in previous administrations, the State Department under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. criticized foreign votes frequently, including what it called a “pantomime election” in Nicaragua, “election fraud” in Belarus and “democratic backsliding” after a disputed vote in the Republic of Georgia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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Justice Dept. Explores Using Criminal Charges Against Election Officials
Such a path could drastically raise the stakes for federal investigations of state or county officials, bringing the department and the threat of criminalization into the election system.Senior Justice Department officials are exploring whether they can bring criminal charges against state or local election officials if the Trump administration determines they have not sufficiently safeguarded their computer systems, according to people familiar with the discussions.The department’s effort, which is still in its early stages, is not based on new evidence, data or legal authority, according to the people, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. Instead, it is driven by the unsubstantiated argument made by many in the Trump administration that American elections are easy prey to voter fraud and foreign manipulation, these people said.Such a path could significantly raise the stakes for federal investigations of state or county officials, thrusting the Justice Department and the threat of criminalization into the election system in a way that has never been done before.Federal voting laws place some mandates on how elections are conducted and ballots counted. But that work has historically been managed by state and local officials, with limited involvement or oversight from Washington.In recent days, senior officials have directed Justice Department lawyers to examine the ways in which a hypothetical failure by state or local officials to follow security standards for electronic voting could be charged as a crime, appearing to assume a kind of criminally negligent mismanagement of election systems. Already, the department has started to contact election officials across the country, asking for information on voting in the state.Ballots from the 2024 general election locked in a secure warehouse area of the Ada County Elections Office in Boise, Idaho, last November.Natalie Behring for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
- in Elections
Romanian Court Annuls Presidential Election
The decision came days after the government asserted it had found an online campaign that promoted a little-known ultranationalist candidate, who emerged as a front-runner in the vote.Romania’s Constitutional Court on Friday canceled the final round of a pivotal presidential election with only two days before the vote, saying it needed to ensure the “correctness of the electoral process.” The surprise decision was the latest in a series of political upheavals across Europe, where right wing movements across the European Union are in the ascendancy. The front-runner in Sunday’s now canceled election had been Calin Georgescu, an ultranationalist whose victory in a first-round vote late last month stunned Romania’s political establishment.George Simion, a far-right leader who had endorsed Mr. Georgescu, denounced the court ruling, saying “a coup is underway,” but he urged supporters not to take to the street in protest. “The system must fall democratically,” Mr. Simion said.The court gave no explanation for its decision, and it was not clear when a new first round would take place. “The electoral process for the president of Romania will be entirely redone,” it said in a statement.The move set off angry reaction among right-wing groups on social media but was welcomed by the prime minister, Marcel Ciolacu, the leader of the governing Social Democrats and a losing candidate in the opening round of the presidential vote.The decision to annul the vote, he said, was the “only correct solution” following the declassification of security council documents that indicated Russian meddling in the election.Not long after the first round last month, The Supreme Council of National Defense, which oversees national security, announced that there had been “cyberattacks” meant to undermine the vote and social cohesion. Mr. Georgescu benefited from the campaign, according to Romanian intelligence documents declassified by the president this week.“Romania, along with other states on NATO’s Eastern Flank, has become a priority for the hostile actions of some state and nonstate actors,” the statement said, singling out Russia.The council, which is led by President Klaus Iohannis and includes other senior officials, also criticized TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, saying the platform had violated electoral laws because it had not identified Mr. Georgescu as a candidate.One of the race’s presidential candidates also made allegations of irregularities in the vote, and the Constitutional Court took up the case, soon ordering a recount. More
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Despite Trump’s Claim, No Ballots Have Been Found Fraudulent in Lancaster County
Details about a continuing investigation revealed by a Republican county commissioner at an election board meeting on Monday undercut claims made by former President Donald J. Trump and others about widespread voter fraud in Lancaster County, Pa.The commissioner, Ray D’Agostino, said that 17 percent of voter registration forms that had been flagged as suspicious there had been found to be “fraudulent,” and that 26 percent of the suspicious forms were still being reviewed.The county would not give the total number of registration forms at issue.But the county was clear that there was no evidence of fraudulent ballots, a fact that stood in stark contrast to a claim made by Mr. Trump at a Sunday rally that “they found 2,600 ballots” — not voter registration forms — “all done by the same hand” in Lancaster County. Mr. Trump’s remarks at the rally, in Lititz, Pa., built on a series of claims that he made last week in speeches and on social media.The episode, which is still under investigation, is quickly becoming central to claims by Trump and his allies that Democrats are trying to steal 19 electoral votes in a crucial battleground state.“They’ve already started cheating in Lancaster,” Mr. Trump said a few days earlier, at a rally in Allentown, Pa.There have been no reports of fraudulent ballots in Lancaster County.A spokesman for the county said that the number of forms at issue was “as many as 2,500” but declined to be more specific.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
- in Elections
No, Vote Spikes on Election Night Do Not Indicate Voter Fraud
The false claimVote totals appear to suddenly surge on election night, sometimes benefiting just one candidate. Some people on social media have falsely claimed that this proves fraudulent votes were counted.Why it is falseSudden increases in vote totals are a normal part of how election results are reported to the public on election night.All real-time election feeds, including those used by The New York Times, rely on unofficial data that companies or news organizations collect from precincts, counties or states. Those sources often update slowly, as votes are counted and reported. But sometimes, election officials release a larger tally of votes all at once, like when a large batch of early or mail-in ballots are reported.States and counties have different procedures for how votes are counted. In some places, mail-in and early ballots are counted first, while in other places they are counted last or in the middle. Since mail-in ballots have historically been used more by Democratic voters than by Republicans, the timing of when those votes are counted — and reported — can change who is leading the race at any given time, leading to a surge in the tabulated vote for one candidate. That happened in 2020, when votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr., then the Democratic nominee, were reported overnight as many Trump supporters were asleep.These vote surges happen in every election and can benefit any candidate.How the falsehoods are being usedA popular claim from the 2020 election showed Mr. Biden suddenly surging past Donald J. Trump, then the president, in Wisconsin. One chart, originally created by the elections data website FiveThirtyEight, used accurate data, but was held up as evidence of voter fraud.The chart reflected a quirk in how data was reported and who benefited in the moment. At around 4 a.m. the day after the election, as votes were still being counted, more than 170,000 absentee votes were reported from the city of Milwaukee — which leans heavily Democratic. Both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump gained votes at the time, but Mr. Biden gained much more. More
- in Elections
Could the Vote Be Contested Again? 5 Threats to a Smooth Election
Litigation, disinformation and battles over certifying the vote all have the potential to complicate the process.For the past four years, Donald J. Trump has been proclaiming the American electoral process “rigged,” decrying events that displease him as “election interference” and laying the groundwork to contest another loss at the polls.It follows the playbook from his loss in 2020, when the former president weaponized disinformation and exploited perceived weak points or vagueness in election law in an attempt to overturn results.At the same time, lawmakers and election officials have been trying to shore up the electoral system against another potential attempt to subvert a presidential election. Federal laws regarding the Electoral College were changed. There is stronger case law to knock down specious legal claims, and Mr. Trump is no longer sitting in the Oval Office with the levers of government in his grasp.But even with a national effort to reinforce the country’s democratic institutions, a smooth path to picking the next president still requires the good faith buy-in of its citizens, candidates and political parties. Absent that, there are a number of ways that the next few weeks — both before and after the polls close — could be rocky.Here is a look at some possibilities:Elizabeth Young, an assistant state attorney general representing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, argued an election-related case before members of Georgia’s Supreme Court last month.Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Associated PressA flood of litigationAlready, more than 187 election-related lawsuits have been filed, including at least 116 seeking some restrictions to voting and 68 filed by those seeking to expand or protect voting, according to data from Democracy Docket, a Democratic-aligned group that tracks election cases. The cases represent an extraordinary inundation of litigation before the election.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More
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No, poll workers aren’t handing out Sharpies to invalidate ballots.
The false claimSome people have falsely claimed that election workers have provided Sharpies, markers or other writing utensils to certain voters in an attempt to somehow invalidate their ballots.Why it is falsePoll workers provide writing utensils that have been tested with ballots and ballot-reading machines long before Election Day. These can include pens, pencils and markers like Sharpies — which are often appropriate to use.Election administrators sometimes rely on recommendations from voting machine companies and then supply those writing tools to election workers.Some companies behind ballot-tabulating machines, including Dominion Voting Systems, recommend felt-tip markers like Sharpies because their fast-drying ink prevents smears. Other election offices, like Maricopa County’s in Arizona, redesigned ballots so that any bleed-through from markers would not impair the ballot.If any writing utensil causes a problem with reading a paper ballot — for instance, if a mark smeared or bled through to the other side — voters are offered an opportunity to vote again, according to the Council of State Governments. If there are additional problems, ballots can be adjudicated by hand using a team of reviewers that includes a Democratic and a Republican representative.How the falsehoods are being usedThe claims often circulate in the form of anecdotes and personal stories that spread rapidly online.These false claims have been featured prominently in election misinformation since at least 2020, when “Sharpiegate” became a viral story that bolstered false claims of widespread voter fraud.That year, the claims were catapulted to larger audiences by right-wing influencers and Trump supporters, including Charlie Kirk, the founder of a pro-Trump youth organization, and Eric Trump, the former president’s son. More
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No, noncitizens are not voting in droves.
The false claimFormer President Donald J. Trump and his allies have falsely claimed that scores of noncitizens — including illegal immigrants — are voting or trying to vote in the United States presidential elections.Why it is falseIt is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and studies have concluded that noncitizen voting is essentially nonexistent.A 2017 analysis from the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit, showed that election officials in 42 jurisdictions found only about 30 incidents of potential noncitizen voting in the 2016 election — among more than 23.5 million votes cast, or 0.0001 percent. The Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, called claims of widespread noncitizen voting “bogus” this year after reviewing state policies and previous audits.Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, announced in October that the state had found only 20 noncitizens among 8.2 million registered voters. An earlier audit he conducted in 2022, going back 25 years, identified 1,634 people who had tried to register to vote but whose citizenship couldn’t be verified. None were allowed to cast a ballot. Georgia has not identified any example of a noncitizen in Georgia who voted in that time.How the falsehoods are being usedThe claim has played a central role in voter fraud conspiracy theories for years, but Mr. Trump and other Republicans have made it a focal point of their targets against immigration and election integrity.“There’s going to be thousands upon thousands of noncitizens voting,” Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, told Politico — a claim he has repeated in news conferences. “If you have enough noncitizens participating in some of these swing areas, you can change the outcome of the election in the majority.”In July, a group tied to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, published a video claiming to show noncitizens who were registered to vote. The New York Times found that the video was deceptive. Three of the seven people said they had misspoken, and state investigators found no evidence that any of the people had registered to vote.In October, Mr. Trump claimed that the Department of Justice was trying to put illegal voters “back on the Voter Rolls” in Virginia. The Justice Department sued to stop the Republican governor’s executive order that could remove noncitizen voters. The department cited a federal law that prevents purging voter rolls en masse within 90 days of an election — a process that a lawyer with the Justice Department said puts “qualified voters in jeopardy of being removed from the rolls and creates the risk of confusion for the electorate.” More
