Voter Fraud (Election Fraud)

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      How a Tiny Elections Company Became a Conspiracy Theory Target

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      At an invitation-only conference in August at a secret location southeast of Phoenix, a group of election deniers unspooled a new conspiracy theory about the 2020 presidential outcome.Using threadbare evidence, or none at all, the group suggested that a small American election software company, Konnech, had secret ties to the Chinese Communist Party and had given the Chinese government backdoor access to personal data about two million poll workers in the United States, according to online accounts from several people at the conference.In the ensuing weeks, the conspiracy theory grew as it shot around the internet. To believers, the claims showed how China had gained near complete control of America’s elections. Some shared LinkedIn pages for Konnech employees who have Chinese backgrounds and sent threatening emails to the company and its chief executive, who was born in China.“Might want to book flights back to Wuhan before we hang you until dead!” one person wrote in an email to the company.In the two years since former President Donald J. Trump lost his re-election bid, conspiracy theorists have subjected election officials and private companies that play a major role in elections to a barrage of outlandish voter fraud claims.But the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups. Their claims often find a receptive online audience, which then uses the assertions to raise doubts about the integrity of American elections.Unlike other election technology companies targeted by election deniers, Konnech, a company based in Michigan with 21 employees in the United States and six in Australia, has nothing to do with collecting, counting or reporting ballots in American elections. Instead, it helps clients like Los Angeles County and Allen County, Ind., with basic election logistics, such as scheduling poll workers.Konnech said none of the accusations were true. It said that all the data for its American customers were stored on servers in the United States and that it had no ties to the Chinese government.But the claims have had consequences for the firm. Konnech’s founder and chief executive, Eugene Yu, an American citizen who immigrated from China in 1986, went into hiding with his family after receiving threatening messages. Other employees also feared for their safety and started working remotely, after users posted details about Konnech’s headquarters, including the number of cars in the company’s parking lot.“I’ve cried,” Mr. Yu wrote in an email. “Other than the birth of my daughter, I hadn’t cried since kindergarten.”The company said the ordeal had forced it to conduct costly audits and could threaten future deals. It hired Reputation Architects, a public relations and crisis management company, to help navigate the situation.After the conspiracy theorists discovered that DeKalb County in Georgia was close to signing a contract with Konnech, officials there received emails and comments about the company, claiming it had “foreign ties.” The county Republican Party chairwoman, Marci McCarthy, heard from so many members about Konnech that she echoed parts of the conspiracy theory at a public comment period during the county’s elections board meeting.“We have a lot of questions about this vendor,” Ms. McCarthy said.The county signed the contract soon after the meeting.“It’s a completely fabricated issue,” Dele Lowman Smith, the elections board chair, said in an interview. “It’s absolutely bizarre, but it’s part of the tone and tenor of what we’re having to deal with leading up to the elections.”Although Konnech is a new target, the people raising questions about the company include some names notorious for spreading election falsehoods.The recent conference outside Phoenix was organized by True the Vote, a nonprofit founded by the prominent election denier Catherine Engelbrecht. She was joined onstage by Gregg Phillips, an election fraud conspiracy theorist who often works with the group. The pair achieved notoriety this year after being featured in “2000 Mules,” a widely debunked documentary claiming that a mysterious army of operatives influenced the 2020 presidential election.Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips claimed at the conference and in livestreams that they investigated Konnech in early 2021. Eventually, they said, the group’s team gained access to Konnech’s database by guessing the password, which was “password,” according to the online accounts from people who attended the conference. Once inside, they told attendees, the team downloaded personal information on about 1.8 million poll workers.A Truth Social account shared the conspiracy theory about Konnech that Gregg Phillips, left on the stage, and Catherine Engelbrecht presented at an event in Arizona in August.Truth SocialThe pair said they had notified the Federal Bureau of Investigation of their findings. According to their story, the agents briefly investigated their claim before turning on the group and questioning whether it had hacked the data.The F.B.I.’s press office said the agency “does not comment on complaints or tips we may or may not receive from the public.”Konnech said in a statement that True the Vote’s claim it had access to a database of 1.8 million poll workers was impossible because, among other reasons, the company had records on fewer than 240,000 poll workers at the time. And the records on those workers are not kept on a single database.The company said it had not detected any data breach, but declined to provide details about its technology, citing security concerns.Konnech once owned Jinhua Yulian Network Technology, a subsidiary out of China, where programmers developed and tested software. But the company said its employees there had always used “generic ‘dummy’ data created specifically for testing purposes.” Konnech closed the subsidiary in 2021 and no longer has employees in China.Konnech sued True the Vote last month, accusing it of defamation, violation of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, theft and other charges.The judge in the case granted Konnech’s request for an emergency temporary restraining order against the group, writing that Konnech faced “irreparable harm” and that there was a risk that True the Vote would destroy evidence. The order also required True the Vote to explain how it had supposedly gained access to Konnech’s data.True the Vote, Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips said they could not comment because of a restraining order issued against them.But in a livestream on social media, Ms. Engelbrecht said the allegations by Konnech were meritless. “True the Vote looks forward to a public conversation about Konnech’s attempts to silence examination of its activities through litigation,” she said.Since the restraining order, True the Vote, Ms. Engelbrecht and Mr. Phillips have told Konnech a new version of their story, changing several important details.Mr. Phillips had explained in a podcast on Aug. 22 that “my analysts” had gained access to the data. But in a letter shared with Konnech’s lawyers, the group claimed that a third party who “was not contracted to us or paid by us” had approached them, claiming it had Konnech’s data. That person, who was unnamed except in a sealed court filing, presented only a “screen share” of “certain elements” of the data. They added that while the group had been provided with a hard drive containing the data, they “did not view the contents,” instead sharing it with the F.B.I.“True the Vote has never obtained or held any data as described in your petition,” they wrote. “This is just one of many inaccuracies contained therein.”The lawsuit did little to slow believers, who continued attacking Konnech. Some employees left the company, citing stress from the crisis, Mr. Yu said. The departures added to the workload among remaining staff just a few weeks before the midterm election.As True the Vote blanketed Konnech’s customers with information requests last year, Mr. Yu sent an email to Ms. Engelbrecht offering his help. True the Vote released that email exchange, including his unredacted email address and phone number, and a trove of other documents related to the company. That gave conspiracy theorists an easy way to target Mr. Yu with threatening messages. He now calls the email he sent naïve.“As we did more research into who they were, it became more and more clear that they had no interest in the truth,” he said. “For them, the truth is inconvenient.”Alexandra Berzon More

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      Lula y Bolsonaro protagonizarán la elección presidencial brasileña más polarizada de los últimos años

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      Los brasileños que votarán el domingo elegirán entre dos titanes políticos, con planes e ideologías muy distintas.RÍO DE JANEIRO — Durante la última década, Brasil ha pasado de una crisis a otra: la destrucción del medioambiente, una recesión económica, una presidenta destituida, dos presidentes encarcelados y una pandemia que mató a más personas que en cualquier otro lugar fuera de Estados Unidos.El domingo, los brasileños votarán por su próximo presidente, con la esperanza de impulsar al mayor país de América Latina hacia un futuro más estable y brillante, y decidirán entre dos hombres que están profundamente vinculados a su tumultuoso pasado.Esta elección es considerada como una de las más importantes del país en décadas, según los historiadores brasileños, en parte porque puede estar en riesgo la salud de la cuarta democracia más grande del mundo.El presidente en el poder, Jair Bolsonaro, es un populista de extrema derecha cuyo primer mandato ha destacado por su agitación y sus constantes ataques al sistema electoral. Ha despertado la indignación en su país y la preocupación en el extranjero por sus políticas que aceleraron la deforestación de la selva amazónica, su apuesta por medicamentos no probados en lugar de las vacunas contra la COVID-19 y sus duros ataques a rivales políticos, jueces, periodistas y profesionales de la salud.El contrincante, el expresidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, es un izquierdista apasionado que supervisó el auge de Brasil durante la primera década de este siglo, pero que luego fue a la cárcel acusado de corrupción. Esos cargos fueron posteriormente retirados, y ahora, tras liderar las encuestas durante meses, el hombre conocido simplemente como Lula está a punto de completar una sorprendente resurrección política.Son quizás las dos figuras más conocidas y más polarizadas de este país de 217 millones de habitantes, y durante más de un año han estado presentando a los votantes visiones muy diferentes para la nación, cuya economía ha sido golpeada por la pandemia y la inflación mundial.Bolsonaro, de 67 años, quiere vender la compañía petrolera estatal de Brasil, abrir la Amazonía a la minería, relajar las regulaciones sobre las armas e introducir valores más conservadores. Da Silva, de 76 años, promete aumentar los impuestos a los ricos para ampliar los servicios para los pobres, lo que incluye ampliar la red de seguridad social, aumentar el salario mínimo y alimentar y dar vivienda a más personas.Partidarios de Bolsonaro en Río de Janeiro. Bolsonaro ha insinuado que la única forma en que cree que perdería las elecciones es si se las roban.Dado Galdieri para The New York TimesEl eslogan de la campaña de Bolsonaro es “Dios, familia, patria y libertad”, mientras que Da Silva ha construido su discurso en torno a la promesa de garantizar que todos los brasileños puedan disfrutar de tres comidas al día, incluyendo, ocasionalmente, un corte de carne superior y una cerveza fría en un asado familiar.Sin embargo, en lugar de sus planes para el futuro, gran parte de la carrera ha girado en torno al pasado de cada candidato. Los brasileños se han alineado en uno u otro bando, basándose en gran parte en su oposición a uno de los candidatos, en lugar de su apoyo a ellos.“La palabra principal en esta campaña es rechazo”, dijo Thiago de Aragão, director de estrategia de Arko Advice, una de las mayores consultoras políticas de Brasil. “Estas elecciones son una demostración de cómo los votantes de un país polarizado se unifican en torno a lo que odian en lugar de lo que aman”.La atención del domingo —cuando un total de 11 candidatos presidenciales estarán en la boleta— no solo estará en los recuentos de votos, sino en lo que sucederá después de que se anuncien los resultados.Bolsonaro lleva meses poniendo en duda la seguridad del sistema de votación electrónica de Brasil, afirmando sin pruebas que es vulnerable al fraude y que los partidarios de Da Silva están planeando amañar la votación. Bolsonaro ha dicho, en efecto, que la única manera de que pierda es que le roben las elecciones.Inspectores del Tribunal Superior Electoral empacan las máquinas de votación después de probarlas en São Paulo. En las últimas semanas, el ejército y los funcionarios electorales acordaron un cambio en la forma en que prueban las máquinas, que según Bolsonaro no son confiables.Victor Moriyama para The New York Times“Tenemos tres alternativas para mí: la cárcel, la muerte o la victoria”, dijo a sus partidarios en enormes mítines el año pasado. “Díganles a los bastardos que nunca seré apresado”.A principios de este año, los militares comenzaron a cuestionar el sistema electoral junto con Bolsonaro, lo que suscitó la preocupación de que las fuerzas armadas podrían respaldar al presidente si se niega a admitir la derrota.Pero en las últimas semanas, los militares y los funcionarios electorales acordaron un cambio en las pruebas de las máquinas de votación y los líderes militares dicen que ahora están satisfechos con la seguridad del sistema. Los militares no apoyarían ningún esfuerzo de Bolsonaro para impugnar los resultados, según dos altos funcionarios militares que hablaron de forma anónima debido a las reglas que impiden a los funcionarios militares hablar de política. Algunos generales de alto rango también han intentado recientemente persuadir a Bolsonaro para que se rinda si pierde, según uno de los oficiales.Sin embargo, Bolsonaro no parece estar satisfecho. El miércoles, su partido político publicó un documento de dos páginas en el que afirmaba, sin pruebas, que los empleados y contratistas del gobierno tenían el “poder absoluto de manipular los resultados de las elecciones sin dejar rastro”. Los funcionarios electorales respondieron que las afirmaciones “son falsas y deshonestas” y “un claro intento de obstaculizar y perturbar” las elecciones.Bolsonaro quiere permitir más actividades mineras en la Amazonía y dice que quiere instaurar valores más conservadores.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesEl jueves, en el último debate antes de la votación del domingo, otra candidata le preguntó directamente a Bolsonaro si aceptaría los resultados de las elecciones. No contestó, sino que insultó a la candidata, diciendo que solamente lo desafiaba porque no le había dado trabajo. (A continuación, ella le preguntó si estaba vacunado contra la COVID-19 —su gobierno consideró que su estado de vacunación era un asunto clasificado— y él respondió de forma similar).Da Silva ha mantenido una ventaja dominante en las encuestas desde el año pasado. Si ningún candidato supera el 50 por ciento de los votos el domingo, los dos primeros competirán en una segunda vuelta el 30 de octubre. Parecía que Bolsonaro y da Silva acabarían en otro enfrentamiento, pero el reciente aumento de las cifras de las encuestas de Da Silva sugiere que podría ganar directamente el domingo.Una victoria de Da Silva continuaría un cambio hacia la izquierda en América Latina, con seis de las siete naciones más grandes de la región eligiendo líderes de izquierda desde 2018. También sería un gran golpe para el movimiento global del populismo de derecha que se ha extendido en la última década. El expresidente Donald Trump es un aliado clave de Bolsonaro y ha respaldado al presidente brasileño.Un mitin de campaña de Lula da Silva en Río de Janeiro. Si no gana las elecciones en la primera ronda, habrá una segunda vuelta el 30 de octubre.Dado Galdieri para The New York TimesLas encuestas sugieren que si Da Silva gana la presidencia en la primera vuelta del domingo solo sería por un estrecho margen, lo que crearía una oportunidad para que Bolsonaro y sus partidarios argumenten que los resultados se deben a un fraude electoral.Líderes políticos y analistas creen que las instituciones democráticas de Brasil están preparadas para resistir cualquier esfuerzo de Bolsonaro para impugnar los resultados de las elecciones, pero el país se prepara para la violencia. El 75 por ciento de los partidarios de Bolsonaro dijeron a la encuestadora más prominente de Brasil en julio que tenían “poco” o ningún apoyo para los sistemas de votación.“Lo único que puede quitarle la victoria a Bolsonaro es el fraude”, dijo Luiz Sartorelli, de 54 años, un vendedor de software en São Paulo. Enumeró varias teorías de la conspiración sobre un fraude pasado como prueba. “Si quieres la paz, a veces tienes que prepararte para la guerra”.Las elecciones también podrían tener importantes consecuencias medioambientales a nivel mundial. El 60 por ciento de la Amazonía se encuentra dentro de Brasil, y la salud de la selva tropical es fundamental para frenar el calentamiento global y preservar la biodiversidad.Bolsonaro ha provocado indignación en el país y preocupación en el mundo por las políticas que aceleraron la deforestación en la selva amazónica.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesBolsonaro ha relajado las regulaciones sobre la tala y la minería en la Amazonía y ha recortado los fondos federales y el personal de las agencias que hacen cumplir las leyes destinadas a proteger a las poblaciones indígenas y el medio ambiente.En su campaña, ha prometido aplicar estrictamente la normativa medioambiental. Al mismo tiempo, ha puesto en duda las estadísticas que muestran el aumento de la deforestación y ha dicho que Brasil debe ser capaz de aprovechar sus recursos naturales.Da Silva prometió acabar con toda la minería ilegal y la deforestación en la Amazonia y ha dicho que animará a los agricultores y ganaderos a utilizar las tierras no ocupadas que ya han sido deforestadas.Con una ventaja constante en las encuestas, Da Silva ha llevado a cabo una campaña excesivamente reacia a los riesgos. Ha rechazado muchas solicitudes de entrevistas y, la semana pasada, no acudió a un debate.Lula da Silva ha prometido aumentar los impuestos a los ricos para ampliar los servicios a los pobres.Dado Galdieri para The New York TimesPero se presentó en el debate del jueves, en el que Bolsonaro lo empezó a atacar inmediatamente. Llamó a Da Silva “mentiroso, exconvicto y traidor”. Afirmó que la izquierda quería sexualizar a los niños y legalizar las drogas. Y trató de relacionar a Da Silva con un asesinato sin resolver de hace 20 años. “El futuro de la nación está en juego”, dijo a los votantes.Da Silva dijo que el presidente mentía. “Usted tiene una hija de 10 años viendo esto”, dijo. “Sea responsable”.André Spigariol More

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      Brazil Faces Big Vote in Presidential Election: Bolsonaro vs. Lula.

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      Brazilians voting for president on Sunday will choose between two political titans in a contest seen as a major test for one of the world’s largest democracies.RIO DE JANEIRO — For the past decade, Brazil has lurched from one crisis to the next: environmental destruction, an economic recession, one president impeached, two presidents imprisoned and a pandemic that killed more people than anywhere else outside the United States.On Sunday, Brazilians will cast their ballots for their next president, hoping to push Latin America’s largest country toward a more stable and brighter future — by deciding between two men who are deeply tied to its tumultuous past.The election is widely regarded as the nation’s most important vote in decades, historians in Brazil say, in part because the health of one of the world’s biggest democracies may be at stake.The incumbent, President Jair Bolsonaro, is a far-right populist whose first term has stood out for its turmoil and his constant attacks on the electoral system. He has drawn outrage at home and concern abroad for policies that accelerated deforestation in the Amazon rainforest, for his embrace of unproven drugs over Covid-19 vaccines and for his harsh attacks on political rivals, judges, journalists and health professionals.The challenger, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is a left-wing firebrand who oversaw Brazil’s boom during the first decade of this century, but then went to prison on corruption charges. Those charges were later thrown out, and now, after leading in polls for months, the man simply known as “Lula” is poised to complete a stunning political resurrection.They are perhaps the two best-known, and most polarizing, figures in this nation of 217 million people, and for more than a year, they have been pitching voters on starkly different visions for the country, whose economy has been battered by the pandemic and global inflation.Mr. Bolsonaro, 67, wants to sell Brazil’s state-owned oil company, open the Amazon to more mining, loosen regulations on guns and usher in more conservative values. Mr. da Silva, 76, promises to raise taxes on the rich to expand services for the poor, including widening the social safety net, increasing the minimum wage, and feeding and housing more people.Supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro in Rio de Janiero. Mr. Bolsonaro has implied that the only way he believes he would lose the election is if it were stolen from him.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesMr. Bolsonaro’s campaign slogan is “God, family, homeland and liberty,” while Mr. da Silva has built his pitch around a pledge to ensure that all Brazilians can enjoy three meals a day, including, occasionally, a top cut of meat and a cold beer at a family barbecue.Yet, instead of their plans for the future, much of the race has revolved around each candidate’s past. Brazilians have lined up on either side based in large part on their opposition to one of the candidates, instead of their support for them.“The major word in this campaign is rejection,” said Thiago de Aragão, strategy director at Arko Advice, one of Brazil’s largest political consultancies. “This election is a demonstration of how voters in a polarized country unify themselves around what they hate instead of what they love.”The focus on Sunday — when a total of 11 presidential candidates will be on the ballot — will not just be on the vote tallies, but also on what will happen after the results are announced.Mr. Bolsonaro has been casting doubt on the security of Brazil’s electronic voting system for months, claiming without evidence that it is vulnerable to fraud and that Mr. da Silva’s supporters are planning to rig the vote. Mr. Bolsonaro has, in effect, said that the only way he would lose is if the election were stolen from him.Electoral Court inspectors packing up voting machines after testing them in São Paulo. In recent weeks, the military and election officials agreed to a change in how they test the machines, which Mr. Bolsonaro has claimed are unreliable.Victor Moriyama for The New York Times“We have three alternatives for me: Prison, death or victory,” he told supporters at enormous rallies last year. “Tell the bastards I’ll never be arrested.”Earlier this year, the military began challenging the election system alongside Mr. Bolsonaro, raising concerns that the armed forces could back the president if he refuses to concede.But in recent weeks, the military and election officials agreed on a change to tests of the voting machines, and military leaders say they are now satisfied with the system’s security. The military would not support any efforts by Mr. Bolsonaro to challenge the results, according to two senior military officials who spoke anonymously because of rules against military officials discussing politics. Some senior generals have also recently tried to persuade Mr. Bolsonaro to concede if he loses, according to one of the officials.Mr. Bolsonaro, however, still does not seem satisfied. On Wednesday, his political party released a two-page document claiming, without evidence, that some government employees and contractors had the “absolute power to manipulate election results without leaving a trace.” Election officials fired back that the claims “are false and dishonest” and “a clear attempt to hinder and disrupt” the election.Mr. Bolsonaro wants to open the Amazon to more mining and says he wants to usher in more conservative values.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesOn Thursday, at the final debate before Sunday’s vote, Mr. Bolsonaro was asked directly by another candidate if he would accept the election results. He did not answer. Instead, he insulted the candidate, saying she was only challenging him because he fired her friends from government jobs. (She then asked if he was vaccinated for Covid-19 — his government deemed his vaccine status to be classified — and he responded similarly.)Mr. da Silva has held a commanding lead in the polls since last year. If no candidate exceeds 50 percent of the vote on Sunday, the top two finishers will compete in a runoff on Oct. 30. It had appeared that Mr. Bolsonaro and Mr. da Silva would end up in another showdown then, but a recent surge in Mr. da Silva’s poll numbers suggests that he could win outright on Sunday.A victory for Mr. da Silva would continue a leftward shift in Latin America, with six of the region’s seven largest nations electing leftist leaders since 2018. It also would be a major blow to the global movement of right-wing populism that has spread in the last decade. Former President Donald J. Trump is a key ally of Mr. Bolsonaro and has endorsed the Brazilian president.A campaign rally for Mr. da Silva in Rio de Janiero. If he does not win next week’s election outright, there will be a runoff on Oct. 30.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesPolls suggest that if Mr. da Silva wins the presidency in Sunday’s first round it would only be by a slim margin, creating an opening for Mr. Bolsonaro and his supporters to argue that voter fraud accounted for the results.Political leaders and analysts believe that Brazil’s democratic institutions are prepared to withstand any effort by Mr. Bolsonaro to dispute the election’s results, but the nation is bracing for violence. Seventy-five percent of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters told Brazil’s most prominent pollster in July that they had “little” or no support for the voting systems.“The only thing that can take victory from Bolsonaro is fraud,” said Luiz Sartorelli, 54, a software salesman in São Paulo. He listed several conspiracy theories about past fraud as proof. “If you want peace, sometimes you need to prepare for war.”The election could also have major global environmental consequences. Sixty percent of the Amazon lies within Brazil, and the health of the rainforest is critical to stemming global warming and preserving biodiversity.Mr. Bolsonaro has drawn outrage at home and concern abroad for policies that accelerated deforestation in the Amazon rainforest.Victor Moriyama for The New York TimesMr. Bolsonaro has loosened regulations on logging and mining in the Amazon, and slashed federal funds and staffing for the agencies that enforce laws intended to protect Indigenous populations and the environment.In his campaign, he has promised to strictly enforce environmental regulations. At the same time, he has cast doubt on statistics that show soaring deforestation and has said that Brazil must be able to take advantage of its natural resources.Mr. da Silva has pledged to end all illegal mining and deforestation in the Amazon, and said that he would encourage farmers and ranchers to use unoccupied land that has already been deforested.With a steady lead in the polls, Mr. da Silva has run an exceedingly risk-averse campaign. He has declined many interview requests and, last week, he skipped a debate.Mr. da Silva has promised to raise taxes on the rich to expand services for the poor.Dado Galdieri for The New York TimesBut he did show up at Thursday’s debate, where Mr. Bolsonaro immediately started swinging. He called Mr. da Silva a “liar, ex-convict and traitor.” He claimed the left wanted to sexualize children and legalize drugs. And he tried to connect Mr. da Silva to a 20-year-old unsolved murder. “The future of the nation is at stake,” he told voters.Mr. da Silva said the president was lying. “You have a 10-year-old daughter watching this,” he said. “Be responsible.”André Spigariol and Flávia Milhorance contributed reporting. More

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      Michigan Poll Worker Charged With Breach; Officials Say Primary Was Sound

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      A Michigan poll worker in the Aug. 2 primary has been charged with tampering with an election computer at a voting precinct, a breach that those in charge of elections said highlighted the insider threats to the system’s integrity that have proliferated since the 2020 election.While state and local officials emphasized that the breach had no influence on the outcome of the primary election, they said that the equipment involved would no longer be used.The episode happened after the polls closed in Gaines Township, south of Grand Rapids, where a person saw a Republican-affiliated election worker insert a personal USB drive into a special computer known as an electronic poll book, the Kent County Clerk’s office said on Wednesday.Chris Becker, the county prosecutor, identified the poll worker as James Donald Holkeboer.The computer stores voter registration data, including confidential, personally identifying information about all voters in the precinct, but is not connected to any of the tabulation equipment or to the internet, according to Lisa Posthumus Lyons, the county clerk.The case extended a pattern of internal actors’ facing accusations of meddling with election equipment in Michigan, a battleground state where former President Donald J. Trump has falsely asserted that there was widespread voter fraud in 2020. Last month, Dana Nessel, Michigan’s attorney general and a Democrat, requested that a special prosecutor be appointed to continue an investigation into previous breaches and pursue potential criminal charges.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Sensing a Shift: As November approaches, there are a few signs that the political winds may have begun to blow in a different direction — one that might help Republicans over the final stretch.Focusing on Crime: Across the country, Republicans are attacking Democrats as soft on crime to rally midterm voters. Pennsylvania’s Senate contest offers an especially pointed example of this strategy.Arizona Senate Race: Blake Masters, a Republican, appears to be struggling to win over independent voters, who make up about a third of the state’s electorate.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.In Kent County, officials did not discuss what had motivated the tampering.“This incident is extremely egregious and incredibly alarming,” Ms. Lyons said in a statement on Wednesday. “Not only is it a violation of Michigan law, but it is a violation of public trust and of the oath all election workers are required to take.”Ms. Lyons, a Republican, said the clerk’s office would conduct a postelection audit of the precinct, complete with a tally of paper ballots to reaffirm the results and reassure voters. The results had been certified on Aug. 12 and the state board of canvassers accepted them on Aug. 19, according to Robert J. Macomber, the chief deputy clerk for Kent County.Mr. Holkeboer, 68, was charged with falsifying returns or records, and using a computer to commit a crime, Mr. Becker, the prosecutor, said in a statement on Wednesday. Both charges are felonies, and they carry a maximum combined penalty of nine years in prison.Mr. Holkeboer could not be immediately reached for comment on Thursday, and it was not clear whether he had a lawyer. He was issued a summons and remained free as of Thursday morning, according to Lori Latham, a spokeswoman for the county.An arraignment date was also not available on Thursday morning for Mr. Holkeboer, who appeared to be a first-time poll worker during the primary, Mr. Macomber said.Poll workers are responsible for checking in voters, looking them up in the electronic poll book, issuing ballots and helping with crowd flow, Mr. Macomber said in an email on Thursday. About six poll workers are assigned to each precinct for the primary and general elections, and their political affiliations are typically split, said Mr. Macomber, who identified Mr. Holkeboer as a Republican.Angela Benander, a spokeswoman for the Michigan Department of State, which oversees elections, said in an email on Thursday that the agency had learned of the breach from the county.“While our elections remain secure and safe, we take seriously all violations of election law and will continue to work with the relevant authorities to assure there are consequences for those who break the law,” Ms. Benander said. “The breached equipment in this case has been decommissioned and will not be in use for the general election in November. Michigan voters can be confident that their votes will be counted accurately and securely.” More

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      On Eve of Election, Bolsonaro’s Party Attacks Brazil’s Voting Systems

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      Four days before Brazilians vote, President Jair Bolsonaro’s political party formally claimed, without evidence, that government employees could alter ballots.RIO DE JANEIRO — For months, officials in Brazil and across the international community have watched President Jair Bolsonaro cast doubt on Brazil’s voting systems, growing increasingly worried that the far-right leader was setting the stage to dispute an election loss.Late Wednesday, the president gave them more reason to worry. In a surprise move less than four days before the vote, Mr. Bolsonaro’s political party released a document that claimed, without evidence, that a group of government employees and contractors had the “absolute power to manipulate election results without leaving a trace.”It was among the most significant attacks yet against Brazil’s election system. The party said that it reached its conclusion based on an audit of the election system it commissioned in July, and that it was releasing the information now because election officials had not sufficiently responded.Brazil’s electoral authority immediately responded on Wednesday. The document’s conclusions “are false and dishonest, with no backing in reality” and are “a clear attempt to hinder and disrupt the natural course of the electoral process,” the agency said in a statement. The Supreme Court said it was now investigating the president’s party for releasing the document.The document delivered a jolt to the presidential race that already had the nation on edge. The attempt to discredit the voting systems just days before the election heightened fears that, in the face of worsening poll numbers, Mr. Bolsonaro was preparing to challenge the results of Sunday’s vote.“They released the report right now because they’re afraid they’re going to lose,” said Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. “They’re trying to create some kind of excuse for Bolsonaro supporters on why.”Mr. Bolsonaro has trailed former leftist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in polls since last year. If no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote on Sunday, the top two finishers will compete in a runoff on Oct. 30. Mr. da Silva’s support has ticked up in recent weeks, and it looks increasingly likely that he could win outright on Sunday. Mr. Bolsonaro has claimed, without evidence, that the polls are systematically wrong.Mr. Bolsonaro has also claimed that Brazil’s electronic voting systems are vulnerable and that Mr. da Silva’s supporters are planning to rig them to steal the election. In July, he called foreign diplomats to the presidential palace to lay out his evidence, which turned out to be years-old news about a hack that did not threaten the voting machines. He has also enlisted Brazil’s military in his fight with election officials, raising fears that the armed forces could support any effort to hold onto power.Observers across the world have been alarmed that Mr. Bolsonaro appears to be following in the footsteps of former President Donald J. Trump. On Wednesday, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution that urged the White House to condemn Mr. Bolsonaro’s efforts to undermine the elections and reconsider its relationship with any Brazilian government that is not democratically elected.Leaders in Brazil’s Congress, courts and armed forces have said that they would not abide by any efforts to reject voters’ will, but many say privately that they are concerned that Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters will react violently to a loss. In July, three out of every four supporters of Mr. Bolsonaro told Brazil’s most prominent polling company that they trusted the voting machines only a “little” or not at all.There is no evidence of past widespread fraud in the system.On Wednesday night, news of the document quickly spread among Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters on social media, with people sharing right-wing articles about the allegations and conspiracy theories that said it proved what Mr. Bolsonaro had been alleging. One YouTube video about it quickly attracted more than 100,000 views in just a few hours. A conservative congresswoman, Carla Zambelli, was one of the first to post the document on social media, sharing it with her 1.9 million followers on Twitter.However, many other politicians, including Mr. Bolsonaro, did not mention it online. In its statement on Wednesday night, the electoral authority reminded elected officials and candidates that they could be impeached or prohibited from running if they shared false allegations about the voting system. That swift reaction likely prevented wider dissemination of the document among politicians.Election officials could also revoke the registration of Mr. Bolsonaro’s conservative political party, called the Liberal Party, if it was found guilty of spreading misinformation about the voting systems, though that would only happen after the election.The document said that the July audit found 24 flaws in the election system’s security. A rough summary of the audit, it specified just a few of those alleged flaws, including that election officials used poor cybersecurity policies, that they did not properly vet relationships with suppliers and that they did not fully protect the employees who control the machines’ computer code from “irresistible coercion.”Election officials’ delay in fixing those alleged security gaps “could result in internal or external breaches of the electoral systems, with a serious impact on the October election results,” the document said.Cybersecurity experts also dismissed the claims.“Some points are old complaints,” said Diego Aranha, a Brazilian computer scientist who has studied the election system. “Others are completely fabricated.”Marcos Simplicio, a researcher at the University of São Paulo who tests Brazil’s voting machines, said the document made gross exaggerations about the risks to the system.He said that like most computer systems, there is a group of engineers that controls the code that underpin the voting machines, but there are multiple security checks to prevent that code from being surreptitiously altered. There are also tests to ensure that the machines are counting votes properly on Election Day. Even if there was a conspiracy to change the code before the election, Mr. Simplicio said, it would likely require a sophisticated, coordinated effort by a group of engineers to pull off.“It’s really hard to keep a secret this big between two people,” he said. “Imagine 20.”Leonardo Coelho contributed reporting. More

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      Activists Flood Election Offices With Challenges

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      Activists driven by false theories about election fraud are working to toss out tens of thousands of voter registrations and ballots in battleground states, part of a loosely coordinated campaign that is sowing distrust and threatening further turmoil as election officials prepare for the November midterms.Groups in Georgia have challenged at least 65,000 voter registrations across eight counties, claiming to have evidence that voters’ addresses were incorrect. In Michigan, an activist group tried to challenge 22,000 ballots from voters who had requested absentee ballots for the state’s August primary. And in Texas, residents sent in 116 affidavits challenging the eligibility of more than 6,000 voters in Harris County, which is home to Houston and is the state’s largest county.The recent wave of challenges have been filed by right-wing activists who believe conspiracy theories about fraud in the 2020 presidential election. They claim to be using state laws that allow people to question whether a voter is eligible. But so far, the vast majority of the complaints have been rejected, in many cases because election officials found the challenges were filed incorrectly, rife with bad information or based on flawed data analysis.Republican-aligned groups have long pushed to aggressively cull the voter rolls, claiming that inaccurate registrations can lead to voter fraud — although examples of such fraud are exceptionally rare. Voting rights groups say the greater concern is inadvertently purging an eligible voter from the rolls.The new tactic of flooding offices with challenges escalates that debate — and weaponizes the process. Sorting through the piles of petitions is costly and time-consuming, increasing the chances that overburdened election officials could make mistakes that could disenfranchise voters. And while election officials say they’re confident in their procedures, they worry about the toll on trust in elections. The challenge process, as used by election deniers, has become another platform for spreading doubt about the security of elections.“It’s a tactic to distract and undermine the electoral process,” said Dele Lowman Smith, chairwoman of the DeKalb County Board of Elections in Georgia. Her county is among several in Georgia that have had to hold special meetings just to address the challenges. The state’s new Republican-backed election law requires that each challenge receive a hearing, and the process was taking up too much time in regular board meetings.The activists say they are exercising their right to ensure that voter rolls are accurate.“If a citizen is giving you information, wouldn’t you want to check it and make sure it’s right?” said Sandy Kiesel, the executive director of Election Integrity Fund and Force, a group involved in challenges in Michigan.But in private strategy and training calls, participants from some groups have talked openly about more political aims, saying they believe their work will help Republican candidates. Some groups largely target voters in Democratic, urban areas.It is not unusual for voter rolls to contain errors — often because voters have died or moved without updating their registrations. But states typically rely on systematic processes outlined in state and federal law — not on lists provided by outside groups — to clean up the information.Still, groups have submitted challenges before. True the Vote, a Texas group behind the misinformation-laden film “2,000 Mules,” challenged more than 360,000 voters in Georgia before Senate runoff elections in 2021.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.A Focus on Crime: In the final phase of the midterm campaign, Republicans are stepping up their attacks about crime rates, but Democrats are pushing back.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Doug Mastriano, the Trump-backed G.O.P. nominee, is being heavily outspent and trails badly in polling. National Republicans are showing little desire to help him.Megastate G.O.P. Rivalry: Against the backdrop of their re-election bids, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida are locked in an increasingly high-stakes contest of one-upmanship.Rushing to Raise Money: Senate Republican nominees are taking precious time from the campaign trail to gather cash from lobbyists in Washington — and close their fund-raising gap with Democratic rivals.The new tactics and types of challenges have spread wildly since, as a broad movement has mobilized around former President Donald J. Trump’s lies that the election was stolen. An influential think tank with close Trump ties, the Conservative Partnership Institute, has distributed a playbook that instructs local groups on how to vet voter rolls. Another national group, the America Project, backed by Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne, influential members in the election denial movement, have helped fund a Georgia outfit that has challenged ballots across the state. America Project’s support was first reported by Bloomberg News.In mid-September, another Georgia group, Greater Georgia, co-sponsored a Zoom training session about how to file challenges with roughly a dozen activists. The group, which was founded by former Senator Kelly Loeffler, said the goal was protecting “election integrity.”The areas it focused on — counties in the metro Atlanta area — have the highest concentration of Democratic voters in the state. The leader of the training, Catherine McDonald, who works for the Voter Integrity Project, told participants she believed Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, both Democrats, won their Senate races in 2021 in part because judges refused to hear cases challenging what she considered illegal voting.“There were more than enough illegal votes,” Ms. McDonald said at the outset of the training, according to a transcript of the event obtained by The New York Times. “None of the judges in Fulton or DeKalb would take the case.”Greater Georgia declined to comment on the training.Thousands of voters have been challenged in Georgia’s Gwinnett County.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesOf the challenges brought in Gwinnett County in Georgia, 15,000 to 20,000 were rejected, while a further 16,000 or so remained undecided. In many cases, the methodology was found to be flawed or misguided. In Forsyth County, Ga., 6 percent of the 17,000 voters challenged were removed from the rolls, according to county records, after election officials determined that the submissions either did not meet necessary requirements or were factually incorrect.In Michigan, the secretary of state’s office said an attempt to challenge 22,027 ballots at once was invalid — state law says challenges must be submitted one at a time rather than in bulk, Jonathan Brater, director of the state’s Bureau of Elections, wrote in a letter to local officials..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Mr. Brater highlighted other issues with the group’s work. The activists used the U.S. Postal Service’s change of address system as evidence indicating a voter’s registration isn’t valid. But many people in that system, including students and members of the military, are still eligible to vote at their previous address, he wrote. Other challenges were based on a glitch that listed Jan. 1, 1900, as a place-holder registration date for people registered before new software was introduced.In interviews with The Times, leaders with the group behind the effort, Election Integrity Fund and Force, said they did not have clear evidence that the voters listed were ineligible. They were simply prompting elections officials to make a closer examination of some potential errors, they said.They weren’t aware of any voters removed from the rolls as a result, they said.Election Integrity Fund and Force has been working in Michigan since the 2020 election, promoting skepticism about the election’s legitimacy. This month, it sued the governor and secretary of state in an attempt to decertify President Biden’s win in the state. It has also sent volunteers knocking on doors to survey residents about the registered voters in their homes. They presented their results to election officials as evidence of problems with the voter rolls.But officials who reviewed the group’s findings said they were riddled with errors and leaps in logic. “They don’t have a grasp of how things actually work,” said Lisa Brown, the county clerk for Oakland County in the Detroit suburbs.Ms. Brown said a colleague found a friend on the group’s list of problematic registrations because the friend forwards her mail. “She’s a snowbird. So, yeah, she forwards her mail to Florida when she’s down there, but she still lives here,” Ms. Brown said.Ms. Kiesel, the group’s executive director, said her group planned to send lists of names to Michigan election officials before the November election. The lists will also go to poll workers, she said.If voters are challenged at polling places, their ballots would be immediately counted. But the ballots would also be marked and could be reviewed later if a candidate or group sued, officials said.Ms. Kiesel has shared her group’s plans with various coalitions of election activists in Michigan, including one with ties to the Conservative Partnership Institute, according to audio of conference calls obtained by The Times. A lawyer who aided Mr. Trump in his effort to overturn the 2020 results, Cleta Mitchell, is leading the institute’s effort to organize activists.“We learned a lot by the challenges,” Ms. Kiesel said on one call with the coalition in August. “We need people to help us to do the same thing in the November election.”Election workers checking voter registrations in Lansing, Mich., on Election Day in 2020.John Moore/Getty ImagesChris Thomas, a former elections director for Michigan now working as a consultant for Detroit, said he did not expect the challenges to succeed. But one concern is that activists will use rejections to sow doubt about the legitimacy of elections if they don’t like the results.“They can’t get over the fact they lost,” Mr. Thomas said. “They are just going to beat the system into the ground.”Another canvassing operation fanned out across Harris County, Texas, over the summer. Volunteers with the Texas Election Network, a group with ties to the state Republican Party, went door to door, clipboards in hand, to ask residents if they were the voters registered at those addresses. The canvassing effort was first reported by The Houston Chronicle.Soon after, 116 affidavits challenging the registration of thousands of voters were filed with the Harris County Election Office, according to data obtained through an open records request by The New York Times. Each affidavit, sent by individual citizens, was written exactly the same.“I have personal knowledge that the voters named in this affidavit do not reside at the addresses listed on their voter registration records,” the affidavits said. “I have personally visited the listed addresses. I have personally interviewed persons actually residing at these addresses.”Each affidavit failed to meet the state’s standards, and after a quick investigation, all were rejected by the election administrator of Harris County. More

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      Don Bolduc Indicates He Has Not Entirely Turned His Back on Election Denial

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      All through his primary, Don Bolduc, a far-right Senate candidate in New Hampshire, said the 2020 election was stolen. A day after his victory was called, he reversed course. But eight days after that?He indicated on a podcast that he had not completely turned his back on the stolen-election movement, conveying that he found it unclear why his election-denial message had not been resonating with voters in the battleground state.“The narrative that the election was stolen, it does not fly up here in New Hampshire for whatever reason,” Mr. Bolduc said in a Sept. 23 appearance on The Mel K Show, a podcast aligned with the QAnon conspiracy movement.Then he renewed his false claim there had been fraud in the election.“What does fly” in New Hampshire, Mr. Bolduc said, “is that there was significant fraud and it needs to be fixed.”For about five minutes on the podcast, Mr. Bolduc attacked the expansion of mail-in voting during the pandemic and said voters in New Hampshire should be forced to present identification at the polls. He further stated his opposition to college students from out of state voting in New Hampshire.Shortly after winning his primary, Mr. Bolduc struck a far different tone in a Fox News interview, saying, “I want to be definitive on this — the election was not stolen.”“Elections have consequences, and, unfortunately, President Biden is the legitimate president of this country,” he said in the interview.Mr. Bolduc’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Monday.He is challenging Senator Maggie Hassan, whose underwhelming job approval ratings have emboldened Republicans in New England. The race could help determine whether Republicans gain control of the Senate in the November elections. More

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      The Dangers of Election-Denying Secretary of State Campaigns

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      Around a dozen election-denying Republican candidates secured their party’s nomination for secretary of state this fall. This is the reality, two years on, that Donald Trump’s election lies have created.There are three types of election-denying candidates, and each one poses distinct problems for civic integrity. There are the swing-state candidates getting lots of justified attention, running in places like Arizona and Michigan, because their elections could have pivotal, clear national implications in the 2024 presidential campaign.Chuck Gray, the Republican nominee for Wyoming secretary of state, in 2018.Jacob Richard Byk/The Wyoming Tribune Eagle, via Associated PressThere are candidates like Chuck Gray in Wyoming, who is all but certain to take office in January, as Democrats didn’t field an opponent. Election-denying candidates in very red states aren’t getting as much attention now, but they likely will come January, when they are officeholders. They will help set policies in their states — many of which will also have Republican-led legislatures and governors — where extremist ideas could become law.And there are people like Dominic Rapini, Connecticut’s Republican secretary of state nominee, who are running in blue states and unlikely to win. Their campaigns, though, will have critical fallout effects. By virtue of their statewide platforms, even losing candidates can further damage the discourse — in their states and nationally — and increase the risks to our democracy. Election deniers in blue states can uniquely exacerbate Mr. Trump’s undermining of faith in our elections, and they, like their winning counterparts in red states, can set the stage for local election-denying candidates to win now or in the future.Dominic Rapini, the Republican nominee for Connecticut secretary of state, at a Boaters for Trump parade in 2020.Arnold Gold/Hearst Connecticut Media Sixteen days after the 2020 presidential election, Mr. Rapini sent 23 tweets containing the same message to a wide range of figures, from a local radio host to Mr. Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani. “It’s time to admit fraud is real and stop denying it! #fraudeniers,” Mr. Rapini wrote.A month and a half later, while the Capitol building was under invasion by Mr. Trump’s supporters and more than an hour after Mike Pence, who was then the vice president, was whisked into hiding, Mr. Rapini tweeted at the official account for the Office of Connecticut’s Secretary of the State: “The real COUP has been prosecuted by Democrats with fake Russian collusion theories and wide spread, systematic voter fraud.”Like Republicans’ recently softened stance on abortion, Mr. Rapini has toned down his rhetoric in recent months. Yet as late as last summer, he remained the board chair of Fight Voter Fraud, a group that claims to “have assembled a ‘silent army’ of volunteer and professional investigators” to look for voter fraud. (He has said he left the board last year.) As recently as this spring, the group was aligned with the attorney Cleta Mitchell’s organization, the Election Integrity Network. Ms. Mitchell was one of the lawyers advising Mr. Trump on the Jan. 2, 2021, call where he asked the Georgia secretary of state to “find” more votes for him there.With a candidate like Mr. Rapini running in a state like Connecticut, where the last Republican secretary of state left office in 1995 (and the last one before that left office in 1959), it would be easy enough to mistake his nomination as unimportant.Richard L. Hasen, a law professor at U.C.L.A. and a leading election law expert, cautioned anyone who might ignore such candidacies. “First of all, just running these races politicizes even further the office of secretary of state,” he told me. Additionally, Mr. Hasen said that having a candidate on a statewide ballot making “constant false claims of massive voter fraud can’t help but create more doubt about election integrity in the minds of a lot of people.”Although President Biden carried Connecticut by over 20 points in 2020, about 715,000 residents voted for Mr. Trump. If national estimates of support for Mr. Trump’s election lies were to apply in Connecticut, that would mean as many as half a million voters don’t trust elections there already. A statewide candidacy by someone so dedicated to pressing unfounded claims — even if unsuccessful — could, at the least, solidify that election skepticism.It’s crucial to remember what the office actually means: In Connecticut, as in many states across the country, the secretary of state is the lead elections official. As the commissioner of elections, Connecticut’s secretary of state is responsible for administering its election laws and, under federal law, doing the same for federal elections. Mr. Rapini has made clear that he would use the position to focus on “election security,” as he wrote on the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection. This would be a marked change from the former secretary of state, who was elected three times and focused on “making voter registration and casting a ballot more convenient and obstacle free for every eligible Connecticut citizen.”Stephanie Thomas, a first-term Connecticut state representative and longtime nonprofit fund-raising and strategy consultant, is the Democratic nominee facing Mr. Rapini in November. “As a nonprofit fund-raiser, the adage used to be if you send someone an email three times, they think they know your organization and they’re more likely to give. So we know that repetition can sometimes prove effective, even if the message is incorrect,” she said in an interview last month. “This type of false narrative just chips away at the fabric of the integrity of our elections, and I think that is just as dangerous as someone in a more reliably red state saying the election was stolen.”One of the people already in these offices who went through the 2020 election and its aftermath agrees. Jena Griswold, the Colorado secretary of state and the chair of the Democratic Association of Secretaries of State, is running for re-election this year. She told me she worries about a wide range of state and local dangers to voting rights, including threats to election workers, excuses for voting restrictions and local election security breaches, because “local officials embrace conspiracies and become security threats themselves.”The point that harm doesn’t just build up but also trickles down is what most worries Sam Oliker-Friedland, who previously worked on voting rights cases at the Justice Department and is now the executive director at the Institute for Responsive Government.He said his concern in a state like Connecticut is the effect the candidacy “will have on lower races, especially races for local election officials.” While the secretary of state is the formal head of elections, it’s the registrars of voters and town clerks in Connecticut who are doing “the day-to-day work of running elections.” Many more people are involved in carrying out elections than just the top officials in a given state, and while their roles are important, they’re also much lower profile. Those officials and their races going forward “will be influenced by this discourse coming from the person running for the top elections post in the state,” Mr. Oliker-Friedland warned, adding that the discourse will also affect primary elections in those races going forward and the way those people do their jobs once elected.Mr. Rapini’s claims of voter fraud spill over into other areas as well, a dynamic that can further politicize other policy decisions. When Connecticut passed a law in the summer of 2021 restoring the right to vote to many who had returned to their communities from prison, Mr. Rapini criticized the move in part as a failure of priorities — he said it meant officials weren’t doing the work to “fix our elections in Connecticut.”Not a lot of people are giving optimistic pitches about the state of things these days, so it stood out to me when Ms. Thomas presented what she sees as a positive path out of this moment. She points to civic education and civic engagement — beyond just a focus on voting and Election Day. “We have to start thinking about this as a holistic, 365-day-a-year process,” she told me. That could restore trust in the system, she said, because the outcomes would be “more reflective of the values.”We still have a long way to go for that to happen, but it’s good that people are talking about it — and working toward it.Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) is a journalist who writes about U.S. legal matters, including the Supreme Court and politics, and publishes the newsletter Law Dork.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More