Voter Fraud (Election Fraud)

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    Could the Vote Be Contested Again? 5 Threats to a Smooth Election

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    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.

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      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.

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      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

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      Chapo Wins Mozambique’s Presidency in Disputed Election

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      Daniel Chapo of the Frelimo party, which has governed the southern African nation for nearly 50 years, was declared the victor amid violence and widespread allegations of fraud.Daniel Chapo was declared the winner of Mozambique’s presidential election on Thursday after a process marred by violence and widespread accusations that his party, Frelimo, which has run the country for nearly five decades, committed fraud.The country’s electoral commission announced that Mr. Chapo won with nearly 71 percent of the vote in the election, which was held on Oct. 9. He will replace Filipe Nyusi, who has served his limit of two five-year terms.The announcement came amid deep upheaval in a southern African nation that has been battling a yearslong insurgency by Islamist extremists in its northern coastal region of Cabo Delgado. The conflict has only deepened the divisions between those who benefit from Mozambique’s trove of natural resources — including natural gas and precious stones — and those struggling with widespread poverty and unemployment.On Monday, tear gas and gunfire filled the streets of the capital, Maputo, as the police clashed with thousands of demonstrators, who accused the governing party of rigging the election and orchestrating the fatal shooting of two supporters of Mr. Chapo’s main rival.Frelimo has said it has not committed any fraud and was not involved in the killings.“Frelimo is confident that the results reflect the will of the people,” Ludmila Maguni, a party spokeswoman, wrote in an email to The New York Times.This month’s election and the sporadic protests around it may be one of the sharpest tests of Frelimo’s power since it led Mozambique to independence from Portugal in 1975 and weathered a civil war in the years after.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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      Republicans Who Led 2020 Election Denial Now Sowing Doubt in 2024 Votes

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      The efforts could help lay the groundwork for what could become another push to undermine the results if former President Donald J. Trump loses again.Starting in late 2020, Representative Scott Perry was one of the ringleaders of the Republican plot to use the House’s constitutional role in certifying the electoral count to delegitimize the results in a bid to help Donald J. Trump overturn the outcome.Now, Mr. Perry and a handful of his Republican colleagues are taking action to also call into question an aspect of this year’s election, helping to lay the groundwork for what could become another effort to undermine the results should Mr. Trump lose again.Mr. Perry and five other Republican members of Congress from Pennsylvania are plaintiffs in a lawsuit against their state’s government that seeks to set aside ballots from members of the military and Americans living overseas, charging that the system for verifying them is insufficient.Mr. Trump has encouraged the notion. He posted on Truth Social last month: “The Democrats are talking about how they’re working so hard to get millions of votes from Americans living overseas. Actually, they are getting ready to CHEAT!”Election officials and other experts say that the claims from Mr. Trump are meritless and that the overseas voting system is safe from fraud. Yet the case is one of about 100 filed this year by Republican allies of Mr. Trump — about 30 have been lodged so far in the two months before Election Day — many of which make unfounded claims about voter rolls and noncitizen voters.They coincide with widespread claims by Mr. Trump and others that the election will be rigged. Together they could help pave the way for yet another challenge to the results if the former president is defeated.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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      En caso de crisis electoral, esto es lo que debes saber

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      En 2020, cuando Donald Trump cuestionó los resultados de las elecciones, los tribunales rechazaron decisivamente sus intentos una y otra vez. En 2024, el poder judicial podría ser incapaz de salvar nuestra democracia.Los renegados ya no son principiantes. Han pasado los últimos cuatro años haciéndose profesionales, diseñando meticulosamente una estrategia en múltiples frentes —legislaturas estatales, el Congreso, poderes ejecutivos y jueces electos— para anular cualquier elección reñida.Los nuevos desafíos tendrán lugar en foros que han purgado cada vez más a los funcionarios que anteponen el país al partido. Podrían ocurrir en un contexto de márgenes electorales muy estrechos en los estados clave de tendencia electoral incierta, lo que significa que cualquier impugnación exitosa podría cambiar potencialmente las elecciones.Disponemos de unas pocas semanas para comprender estos desafíos y así poder estar alerta contra ellos.En primer lugar, en los tribunales ya se han presentado docenas de demandas. En Pensilvania se ha iniciado un litigio sobre si están permitidas las papeletas de voto por correo sin fecha y si se pueden permitir las boletas provisionales. Stephen Miller, exasesor de Trump, presentó una demanda en Arizona alegando que los jueces deberían tener la capacidad de rechazar los resultados de las elecciones.Muchos estados han cambiado recientemente su forma de votar. Incluso una modificación menor podría dar lugar a impugnaciones legales, y algunas invitan afirmativamente al caos.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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      Oct. 7: For Jews in America, a Time of Reflection

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      More from our inbox:Republicans’ Plans to Challenge the VoteVanderbilt’s Leader: Why the College Rankings Are Flawed Mark Peterson/ReduxTo the Editor:Re “The Year American Jews Woke Up,” by Bret Stephens (column, Oct. 6):Mr. Stephens paints a disconcerting portrait of life for Jews in America, one that rings true for my family, as well as for those whom my organization works to serve. He does us a great service, and spurs us to find solutions to the problem and antidotes for the poison.To that end, the American Jewish Congress is about to launch a nationwide competition — a solutions challenge — that invites young American Jews to offer their views on how their country can best grapple with the increasingly rampant antisemitism in our midst.We hope this exercise will also demonstrate to the collective American conscience how deserving of support our Jewish citizens are. Has America forgotten the brave role played by Jews in the country’s defiant civil rights movement?Antisemitism existed before Oct. 7 and will, alas, exist in some quarters till the end of time. What is incumbent upon the Jewish community now is to quickly adapt to an ugly new reality and reimagine how Jewish identity and life in America can continue to flourish in conditions of adversity.This challenge will define the future not just of our Jewish compatriots, but also of America’s democracy.Daniel RosenNew YorkThe writer is president of the American Jewish Congress.To the Editor:Bret Stephens claims that the line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism has been blurred. As a proud Jew who is highly critical of today’s Israel and supportive of the Palestinian struggle, I see no blur; I see a bright red line.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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      Trump Rally in Michigan Dominated by More False Statements

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      Former President Donald J. Trump held a rally on Thursday in the key battleground state of Michigan that was notable mainly for his continued false statements and exaggerations on a number of subjects as varied as the 2020 election and the federal government’s response to Hurricane Helene.In the roughly 85 minutes that Mr. Trump was onstage, he repeated a pattern of untrue assertions that have characterized many of his events as the 2024 presidential race heads into its final weeks. The crowd of supporters in Saginaw County, which he narrowly lost four years ago, included Mike Rogers, the former Michigan congressman and the Republican candidate for Michigan’s open Senate seat, and Pete Hoekstra, the Michigan Republican Party chairman.Mr. Trump reiterated his familiar false claim that he had won the 2020 election and made no acknowledgment of new evidence that was unsealed against him on Wednesday in the federal election subversion case. He also said his campaign was up in all polls in every swing state, while several public polls show close races and Vice President Kamala Harris leading narrowly in a number of battlegrounds.Mr. Trump also mischaracterized the state of funding at the Federal Emergency Management Agency, saying that the Biden administration had stolen disaster-relief money allocated to the agency to give to housing for undocumented immigrants so they would vote for Democrats.He cast electric cars as a threat to the auto industry, while at the same time praising Elon Musk, the Tesla chief executive who has endorsed his candidacy and featured him prominently on X, the Musk-owned social media platform.Michigan was one of a handful of swing states where Mr. Trump and his allies tried to overturn his defeat in 2020 through a series of maneuvers that included breaching voting equipment and seeking to seat a set of fake presidential electors. Some of his supporters have been criminally charged in the state, where Mr. Trump was named as an unindicted co-conspirator this year.Mr. Trump spent time in his speech taking satisfaction over his choice of running mate, Senator JD Vance of Ohio, whose debate performance this week was applauded by many.“I drafted the best athlete,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Vance. The audience — several thousand supporters at a recreation center at Saginaw Valley State University, roughly 100 miles north of Detroit — cheered.And he mused, at one point, that instead of being on a beach in Monte Carlo or someplace else, he was running for the presidency again. “If I had my choice of being here with you today or being on some magnificent beach with the waves hitting me in the face, I would take you every single time.”Overall as of Thursday, Ms. Harris led by two percentage points in Michigan, according to The New York Times’s polling average, 49 percent to 47 percent. The vice president is scheduled to return to the state on Friday, campaigning in Detroit and Flint. More

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      Harris or Trump? Once Again, Election Results Could Take a While.

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      More Americans are using mail-in ballots, which take longer to count than those cast in person. In several battleground states, a winner may not be apparent on Nov. 5.The hosts of election night parties may want to book a room for more than just one night.For the second straight presidential election, it is becoming increasingly likely that there will be no clear and immediate winner on election night and that early returns could give a false impression of who will ultimately prevail.Large swaths of Americans have changed their voting habits in recent years, relying increasingly on mail-in ballots, which take more time to count than those cast in person on Election Day. States with prolonged vote-counting processes, such as Arizona, have become suddenly competitive. And the race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump appears extremely close.If a winner is not declared on election night, it will not necessarily point to failures in the process. More likely, it will be a result of the intense security measures required for counting mail-in ballots.Election officials across the country are trying to telegraph to voters that waiting long hours or even days for a result is not unexpected in a close election. They are eager to counter conspiracy theorists who may seize on the uncertainty as evidence of fraud or malfeasance.“I keep objecting to the term ‘delays,’” said Al Schmidt, the Republican secretary of state in Pennsylvania. The ballots, he said, would be counted “as expeditiously as possible, and counting votes takes time.”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