Voter Fraud (Election Fraud)

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      Rudy Giuliani’s $148 Million Treachery

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      On Dec. 13, an election worker named Ruby Freeman took the stand in a Georgia courtroom and told the story of how her world was turned upside down by Rudy Giuliani. Three Decembers earlier, Giuliani shared a routine surveillance video of Ms. Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, doing the routine yet vital work of counting 2020 presidential ballots at State Farm Arena in Atlanta.But Giuliani’s description of the video was anything but routine. He falsely claimed that the footage was evidence of vote fraud. In that moment, everything changed for Freeman. As she said in her testimony, “Giuliani just messed me up, you know.” That’s a polite way of describing the horrors that followed. She faced an avalanche of threats, racist attacks and harassment at work and home. She had to leave her house — and then, after law enforcement officials found her name on a death list, the house of the friend she’d been staying with. Even now she’s afraid to walk in public without a mask.The purpose of Freeman’s courtroom testimony was simple: to describe in detail how Giuliani’s lies had profoundly damaged her life. And make no mistake, Giuliani lied. He admitted that his statements were false back in July, and in August the court entered a default judgment against him, holding him liable for those falsehoods. The only question left for the jury was the amount of the damages. And Friday, the jury gave its answer: Giuliani now owes Freeman and Moss $148 million to compensate them for his cruel and obvious lies.The verdict is against Giuliani alone. But make no mistake, MAGA was on trial in the courtroom — its methods, its morality and the means it uses to escape the consequences of its dreadful acts. That’s because Rudy Giuliani isn’t truly Rudy Giuliani any longer. In his long descent from a post-9/11 American hero to a mocked, derided and embattled criminal defendant (he has also been indicted in Fani Willis’s sprawling Georgia case), he became something else entirely. He became a MAGA Man.I’m reminded of Sigourney Weaver’s famous line in “Ghostbusters”: “There is no Dana, only Zuul.” There is no Giuliani now, only Donald Trump.There are many MAGA Men and MAGA Women in the modern G.O.P. To meet one is, in significant respects, to meet them all. The names roll off the tongue. Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Kari Lake, Roger Stone, Marjorie Taylor Greene, John Eastman — the list could go on and on. And while they all have different stories before Trump, they share variations of the same story after Trump. Giuliani’s story, MAGA’s story, is theirs as well.That’s what was most significant about his trial. It wasn’t the damage award, as substantial as it was. It’s the story, the tale that lays bare what a MAGA Man is.The first thing you need to know about a MAGA Man like Giuliani is that he’s dishonest. Truthfulness is incompatible with Trumpism. Trump is a liar, and he demands fealty to his lies. So Giuliani’s task, as Trump’s lawyer, was to lie on his behalf, and lie he did. He even repeated his lies about Freeman and Moss — the same lies to which he’d already confessed — outside the courthouse during his trial.A MAGA Man such as Giuliani supplements his lies with rage. To watch him pushing Trump’s election lies was to watch a man become unglued with anger. The rage merged with the lie. The rage helped make the lie stick. Why would a man like Giuliani, former prosecutor and hero mayor, be so angry if he hadn’t discovered true injustice? MAGA Men and Women are very good at using their credibility from the past to cover their lies in the present.Amid the lies and rage, however, a MAGA Man like Giuliani also finds religion. But not in the way you might expect. No, MAGA Man is not sorry for what he’s done. Instead, he feels biblically persecuted. Freeman and Moss aren’t the real victims; he is. Moreover, he also knows that the base is religious and likes to hear its politicians talk about God.Giuliani learned that lesson well. So during the trial, he compared himself to Christians in the Colosseum, battling the lions like the martyrs of old. He’s not alone in this, of course. Trump shared an image of Jesus sitting by his side as he stood trial. Stone got so religious that he claimed to see supernatural sights, including, he said, a “demonic portal” that’s “swirling like a cauldron” about the Biden White House.One of the persistent debates in American life centers on how strictly we should judge the sins of our national past. Were those people who owned slaves or broke faith with Native Americans or passed the Chinese Exclusion Act merely products of their time? MAGA Men and MAGA Women will not have that excuse. They know there is a different way. Before Trump, many of them — whatever their flaws — lived very different lives. And few of them more so than Giuliani.His trial and verdict write another page in the volume of truth that tells the real story of MAGA America. Every voter should know exactly who Trump is and what his movement is like. They should know what happened to Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. We should remember their names. But if a MAGA Man remembers, he does not care. Whoever he once was is gone. He serves a new master now.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, Instagram, TikTok, X and Threads. More

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      Nevada Charges Republican Party Leaders in 2020 Fake Elector Scheme

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      The six Republicans charged on Wednesday included the state party’s chairman and vice chairman as well as the chairman of the Republican Party in Clark County.A Nevada grand jury indicted top leaders of the state’s Republican Party on charges of forging and submitting fraudulent documents in the fake elector scheme to overturn Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the 2020 presidential election, the state’s attorney general announced on Wednesday.The six Republicans charged, who claimed to be electors for Donald J. Trump, included the chairman of the state party, Michael J. McDonald. Also included are Jim Hindle, the state party’s vice chairman; Jim DeGraffenreid, a national committeeman; Jesse Law, the chairman of the Republican Party in Clark County, home to Las Vegas; and Shawn Meehan and Eileen Rice, executive board members of the Republican Party in Douglas County.“When the efforts to undermine faith in our democracy began after the 2020 election, I made it clear that I would do everything in my power to defend the institutions of our nation and our state,” Aaron D. Ford, Nevada’s attorney general and a Democrat, said in a statement. “We cannot allow attacks on democracy to go unchallenged. Today’s indictments are the product of a long and thorough investigation, and as we pursue this prosecution, I am confident that our judicial system will see justice done.”The charges are the latest in a nationwide effort by officials to prosecute those who falsely portrayed themselves as state electors in an effort to overturn Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020. Michigan’s attorney general charged 16 Republicans in July for a similar effort in the state.The plan involved creating false slates of electors pledged to Mr. Trump in seven swing states that were won by Mr. Biden in an effort to overturn the election.Kenneth Chesebro, a key player in the fake elector scheme, is listed as a witness in the Nevada indictments. Mr. Chesebro had earlier pleaded guilty in a criminal racketeering indictment in Georgia that accused him of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election. Mr. Chesebro had also agreed to cooperate with state prosecutors in that case.The six Republicans were each charged in similar four-page indictments with one count of forging certificates designating Nevada’s electoral votes for Mr. Trump, even though Mr. Biden won the state in 2020. They were also each charged with one count of knowingly submitting these fake certificates to state and federal officials.If convicted, the false electors face a combined maximum of nine years in prison and $15,000 in fines. More

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      Trump Lawyer Tells Judge a Georgia Trial Would Be ‘Election Interference’

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      Arguments in court on Friday offered clues to Donald J. Trump’s legal strategy in fighting state charges of conspiracy to overturn the 2020 presidential election.A lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump argued in an Atlanta courtroom on Friday that putting his client on trial in the final stages of the 2024 presidential contest would be “the most effective election interference in the history of the United States.”Steven H. Sadow, Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer in Georgia, also asserted that if his client were to win the election, Georgia could not try him in the case until after he left the White House again. He cited the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution, which makes federal law “supreme” over contrary state laws.Whether a president would in fact be shielded from prosecution while in office is not a settled legal matter.Mr. Sadow’s comments, which were challenged by prosecutors, came during a hearing in the election interference case against Mr. Trump and 14 co-defendants that was brought in August by Fani T. Willis, the district attorney in Fulton County, Ga.Ms. Willis wants the defendants to go on trial in August, but the presiding judge, Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court, did not set a date on Friday. Mr. Trump is seeking to delay the trial, while another defendant, John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Mr. Trump after he lost the 2020 presidential election, is seeking to speed it up.Judge McAfee scheduled the hearing to address motions not just from Mr. Trump, but also from a number of his co-defendants. He did not make any rulings from the bench, and gave few clues as to what he thought of the various arguments.All 15 defendants in the case face conspiracy charges related to attempts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results and subvert the will of voters. Four other defendants have pleaded guilty in the case and have agreed to cooperate with the government.The arguments from Mr. Sadow, a veteran Atlanta defense lawyer, were the main event at the hourslong hearing on Friday, offering some of the first hints about Mr. Trump’s legal strategy in the case.“Can you imagine the notion of the Republican nominee for president not being able to campaign for the presidency because he is in some form or fashion in a courtroom defending himself?” Mr. Sadow asked during the proceeding.That led Judge McAfee to ask what the prosecution thought of the idea “that having this trial on Election Day would constitute election interference?”Nathan Wade, the lead prosecutor in the case, rejected it.“This is moving forward with the business of Fulton County,” he said. “I don’t think that it in any way impedes defendant Trump’s ability to campaign.”Mr. Sadow also argued that to have a fair trial on state charges in Georgia, Mr. Trump needed access to lists of the government’s evidence in a related federal case against him.Last month, Mr. Sadow sent an email to members of the former president’s legal team who are handling the federal election interference case. In the email, Mr. Sadow said he wanted an inventory of “relevant material” that is “common to both of our cases” — specifically, F.B.I. reports and federal grand jury transcripts.The F.B.I. reports and federal grand jury transcripts stem from the separate federal investigation into election interference following the 2020 election.It is not unusual for a lawyer to ask for broader access to evidence, but Mr. Sadow’s motion is complicated by the fact that it seeks material from a different jurisdiction. The motion is being interpreted by many legal analysts as an effort by Mr. Trump to delay the Georgia proceedings.In response to Mr. Sadow’s email, the lawyers in the federal case pointed to a protective order that “appears to restrict our ability to share information with others.” Mr. Sadow then filed a motion seeking Judge McAfee’s assistance.The federal case is being brought by Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. It relates to Mr. Trump’s broader efforts to stay in power after the 2020 election despite losing to Joseph R. Biden Jr.On Friday, Mr. Sadow told Judge McAfee that there was “remarkable overlap” between the Georgia case and Mr. Trump’s election interference case in Washington. He said that if he were unable to get his hands on the federal discovery, “the remedy is dismissal of the case.”One possibility, Mr. Sadow said, would be for the Georgia court to wait until the Washington case was “completely over,” at which point, presumably, the information would be free for him to request. Or, he said, he could prepare a subpoena.A solution to the conundrum, he said, “is going to take some time.”For the bulk of the hearing, defense lawyers, including Mr. Sadow, argued motions challenging many of the charges in the 98-page indictment. A lawyer for Robert Cheeley, a defendant and pro-Trump lawyer, argued that the indictment was an assault on the First Amendment rights of the defendants to engage in political speech.The lawyer, Chris Anulewicz, said that defendants’ statements challenging the 2020 election result had been rebutted “by a ton of counter-speech” in the public sphere and in the courts, a sufficient remedy in itself.Will Wooten, a deputy district attorney for Fulton County, said that some of the crimes listed in the indictment pertained to expression and speech, but that others did not.For example, he said, conspiracy to commit racketeering — the central crime that all the defendants are charged with — was not about speech, but rather “a crime involving a corrupt agreement.” More

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      Wisconsin Judge Dismisses Felony Charge in ‘Ballot Selfie’ Case

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      The debate over a candidate’s photo reflects concerns among states over selfies of ballots and of people showing how they vote. A Wisconsin judge on Monday dismissed a felony charge against a school board candidate who had posted a photograph on Facebook of a ballot with his name filled in.In his ruling, the judge, Paul V. Malloy of Ozaukee County, threw out the count of voter fraud against the man, Paul H. Buzzell, 52, a former school board member in Mequon, a suburb of Milwaukee, who was voted back onto the board during an election in April, online court records show. Judge Malloy ruled on a motion to dismiss by Mr. Buzzell’s lawyers, who argued that the state law prohibiting so-called ballot selfies was overly broad and violated the constitutional guarantee of free expression. “What is at stake is branding a politician a felon for declaring to the world that the politician displayed” a marked ballot “showing a vote for himself in an election,” the motion said. Mr. Burrell would have faced a maximum possible sentence of three and a half years in prison and a $10,000 fine had he been convicted. He would also have been barred from running for elected office.The case reflects the debate among states over selfies of ballots and of people showing how they vote. Some legislators have argued that public displays of marked ballots can be used to influence voters in an election or to promote vote buying. Others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say such laws banning voting selfies on social media restrict free speech.Under Wisconsin law, it is an election fraud violation for a person to show his or her marked ballot to someone else, or to mark a ballot so that it is identifiable as his or hers. It is one of at least 18 states that have laws prohibiting selfies displaying a voter’s marked ballot.In 2020, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill to legalize ballot selfies, but the State Assembly failed to pass a bill that would eliminate the statute, The Associated Press reported.According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Buzzell, 52, published a photograph on Facebook of a marked ballot on March 27 ahead of an election for the Mequon-Thiensville School Board. Witnesses reported the post to the Mequon Police Department as a case of possible election fraud, the complaint said. The photograph of the ballot showed the oval next to Mr. Buzzell’s name filled out as well as that of another candidate, Jason P. Levash, court documents show. Mr. Levash serves as the school board’s vice president, and Mr. Buzzell serves as treasurer. “He displayed a marked ballot showing a vote for himself,” Mr. Buzzell’s lawyer, Michael Chernin, said on Tuesday, adding that Mr. Buzzell indicated that the ballot in question was his daughter’s. Mr. Buzzell, when contacted by the police on April 2, said that “his understanding was that it was not illegal to post a photo of a ballot with his name on it,” the complaint said. He cast his own ballot in person on April 5, according to the complaint.While the dismissal means that the prosecutors’ case cannot move ahead, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which reported on Monday that the charges had been dropped, quoted the Ozaukee County district attorney, Adam Gerol, as saying that he would ask the attorney general to decide whether to file an appeal or issue an opinion. “It’s in the A.G.’s hands,” said Mr. Gerol, a Republican. He did not immediately reply to a message left at his office on Tuesday.The office of Josh Kaul, the attorney general, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Wisconsin Department of Justice would review the district attorney’s request and “proceed appropriately.” More

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      Georgia Judge Weighs Revoking Bail for a Trump Co-Defendant, Harrison Floyd

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      Prosecutors say the defendant, Harrison Floyd, has been intimidating potential witnesses in the racketeering case with his social media posts.In a fiery courtroom presentation, the prosecutor overseeing the Georgia racketeering case against former President Donald J. Trump argued on Tuesday that one of Mr. Trump’s co-defendants had intimidated potential witnesses on social media and should be sent to jail.But Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court chose not to revoke the bond of Harrison Floyd, the co-defendant. Instead, he signed off on modified terms prohibiting Mr. Floyd from posting further comments about witnesses in the case.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, Ga., took the unusual step of personally arguing on behalf of the prosecution, a few days after she filed a motion accusing Mr. Floyd of intimidating an elections worker and other witnesses for the state — including Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger — through his posts on X, formerly known as Twitter.Mr. Floyd’s lawyers noted that Mr. Trump himself had issued provocative social media posts about the Georgia case, and that no action had been taken against him. That, they argued, made “the state’s decision to go after Harrison Floyd hard to justify.”They also argued that Mr. Floyd had not been trying to intimidate or threaten anyone with his posts. But they acknowledged by the end of Tuesday’s hearing that he had “walked up close to the line” of violating the terms of his bond.Mr. Floyd, once the head of a group called Black Voices for Trump, was paid by the 2020 Trump campaign. He is one of 19 people, including the former president, who were named as defendants in a 98-page racketeering indictment in August.The indictment charges them with orchestrating a “criminal enterprise” to reverse the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Four of the defendants have pleaded guilty and have promised to cooperate with prosecutors.In addition to a state racketeering charge, Mr. Floyd faces two other felony counts in the case, for his role in what the indictment describes as a scheme to intimidate Ruby Freeman, a Fulton County elections worker, and pressure her to falsely claim that she had committed electoral fraud.Ms. Freeman and her daughter were part of a team processing votes in Fulton County on election night in November 2020. Soon after, video images of the two women handling ballots were posted online, and Trump supporters falsely claimed that the video showed them entering bogus votes to skew the election in President Biden’s favor.Ms. Freeman became the target of so many threats that she was forced to leave her home.Her lawyer was a witness for the prosecution at Tuesday’s hearing, producing a report that he said showed a recent “spike” in online mentions of Ms. Freeman. That spike led her to adopt a fresh set of security measures, her lawyer said.Mr. Floyd’s lawyers, John Morrison and Chris Kachouroff, called the effort to revoke his bond “a retaliatory measure” — in part, they said, because Mr. Floyd recently turned down a plea agreement offered by the state. They argued that “tagging” people in posts did not constitute contact with witnesses, and was no different from yelling “a message to someone else sitting on the opposite side of a packed Mercedes-Benz stadium during the middle of an Atlanta Falcons football game.” Ms. Willis responded that “this notion that tagging someone doesn’t get a message to them is really lunacy,” She also called Mr. Floyd’s posts “disgusting,” adding that “what he really did is spit on the court.”And she was explicit about the stakes as she saw them: Election workers, she said, should not be intimidated for doing their jobs.Judge McAfee said that it appeared that Mr. Floyd had committed a “technical violation” of his bond by communicating with witnesses in the case, but seemed reluctant to take the step of jailing Mr. Floyd. “Not every violation compels revocation,” he said.Ms. Willis’s forceful stance on Mr. Floyd’s posts could have repercussions for Mr. Trump, who is enmeshed in battles over gag orders in other civil and criminal cases against him. Mr. Trump’s bond agreement in Georgia specifies that he “shall perform no act,” including social media posts, “to intimidate any person known to him or her to be a co-defendant or witness in this case or to otherwise obstruct the administration of justice.”Mr. Floyd was the only one of the original 19 co-defendants in Georgia to spend days in jail in August while waiting to make bond. At Tuesday’s hearing, he cut a colorful figure at the defense table, wearing a green blazer adorned with polo horses. Before the hearing began, he appeared to be reading a book about the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius.As the two sides worked out the new terms of the bond agreement, Ms. Willis made a reference to “Trump,” prompting Mr. Floyd to interject, “President Trump.”The judge told Mr. Floyd that it was not his place to talk. More

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      A Jan. 6 Defendant Pleads His Case to the Son Who Turned Him In

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      The trial was over and the verdict was in, but Brian Mock, 44, kept going back through the evidence, trying to make his case to the one person whose opinion he valued most. He sat at his kitchen table in rural Wisconsin next to his son, 21-year-old A.J. Mock, and opened a video on his laptop. He leaned into the screen and traced his finger over the image of the U.S. Capitol building, looked through clouds of tear gas and smoke and then pointed toward the center of a riotous crowd.Listen to This ArticleOpen this article in the New York Times Audio app on iOS.“There. That’s me,” he said, pausing the video, zooming in on a man wearing a black jacket and a camouflaged hood who was shouting at a row of police officers. He pressed play and turned up the volume until the sound of chants and explosions filled the kitchen. “They stole it!” someone else yelled in the video. “We want our country back. Let’s take it. Come on!”A.J. shifted in his chair and looked down at his phone. He smoked from his vape and fiddled with a rainbow strap on his keychain that read “Love is love.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Las denuncias de fraude electoral de Milei emulan las estrategias de Trump y Bolsonaro

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      El economista libertario de extrema derecha Javier Milei podría ganar la presidencia de Argentina el domingo. Si no lo consigue, ya ha planteado que sería por fraude.Las denuncias de Donald Trump sobre fraude electoral ya habían ayudado a inspirar a un líder sudamericano, el expresidente de Brasil, Jair Bolsonaro, a sembrar dudas sobre la seguridad de las elecciones de su nación, lo que provocó disturbios en la capital de Brasil este año.Ahora, a 2400 kilómetros al sur, hay un nuevo político latinoamericano que denuncia un fraude electoral con escasas pruebas, socavando la fe de muchos de sus partidarios en las elecciones de su país de este domingo.Javier Milei, economista libertario de extrema derecha y personalidad televisiva, compite en una segunda vuelta electoral para convertirse en el próximo presidente de Argentina. Durante la campaña, ha aceptado con beneplácito las comparaciones con Trump y Bolsonaro y, al igual que ellos, ha advertido repetidamente de que si pierde, podría ser porque le hayan robado las elecciones.Milei ha afirmado, sin pruebas, que papeletas robadas y dañadas le costaron más de un millón de votos en las elecciones primarias celebradas en agosto, es decir, hasta el 5 por ciento del total.Milei afirmó que un fraude similar podría haber amañado también la primera vuelta de las elecciones generales del 22 de octubre, en las que quedó segundo con el 30 por ciento de los votos. “Hubo irregularidades de semejante tamaño que ponen en duda el resultado”, declaró en una entrevista televisiva la semana pasada.El miércoles, su campaña intensificó las acusaciones. La hermana de Milei, que dirige su campaña, presentó una denuncia ante un juez federal en la que alegaba un “fraude colosal” y afirmaba que, en las votaciones previas, funcionarios argentinos anónimos cambiaron papeletas de Milei en favor de su oponente. Dijeron que la información procedía de fuentes anónimas.El ascenso de Milei de incendiario comentarista de televisión a líder político a las puertas de la presidencia de Argentina ya ha sacudido la política de este país de 46 millones de habitantes. Sus promesas radicales de sustituir la moneda argentina por el dólar estadounidense y cerrar el banco central del país han hecho que los argentinos se preparen para lo que podría ocurrir si gana.Pero ahora, con sus alegaciones preventivas de fraude, los argentinos también se preparan para lo que podría ocurrir si no gana.Milei ha prometido modificar radicalmente el gobierno y la economía de Argentina, al eliminar el banco central del país y reemplazar su moneda por el dólar estadounidense.Sarah Pabst para The New York TimesLas encuestas apuntan a un empate técnico entre Milei y su oponente, Sergio Massa, ministro de Economía de centroizquierda.Muchos de los partidarios de Milei ya han empezado a quejarse, culpando al fraude de su segundo lugar el mes pasado y saliendo a la calle al menos tres veces para protestar lo que según ellos son planes de la izquierda para robar las elecciones. El jueves, sus partidarios anunciaron planes para protestar ante la autoridad electoral del país el día de las elecciones.Hasta ahora, las protestas han sido relativamente pequeñas y pacíficas, pero los observadores electorales señalan que podría deberse a que Milei sigue en la contienda.“No me preocupa que el sistema electoral argentino esté en riesgo”, dijo Facundo Cruz, politólogo argentino que ha seguido de cerca las denuncias de fraude. “Pero sí que ciertas prácticas que vimos en Estados Unidos y en Brasil se repitan”.El aprieto de Argentina sugiere que los esfuerzos de Trump para revertir las elecciones estadounidenses de 2020 no solo dejaron una marca duradera en la democracia estadounidense, sino que también siguen reverberando mucho más allá de las fronteras de EE. UU., donde algunos líderes políticos están recurriendo al fraude como una nueva excusa potencial para la derrota electoral.“En 40 años de democracia, nunca hemos tenido críticas serias ni idea alguna de fraude como la que se denuncia ahora”, afirmó Beatriz Busaniche, directora de la Fundación Vía Libre, una organización argentina sin fines de lucro que ha trabajado para mejorar los sistemas de votación del país. (Argentina estuvo bajo el control de una dictadura militar de 1976 a 1983).“Todas las personas que creen en el sistema electoral, la democracia y la transparencia están muy preocupadas”, añadió Busaniche.Las autoridades electorales argentinas afirman que no hay pruebas de fraude. En la votación del 22 de octubre, recibieron un total de 105 denuncias de papeletas perdidas o dañadas, una cifra habitual.Las autoridades electorales afirmaron que tampoco han recibido ninguna queja formal de la campaña de Milei en relación con un posible fraude. La autoridad electoral argentina, en un comunicado, calificó sus declaraciones de “invocaciones de fraude sin fundamento que en estos días desinforman a la opinión pública y socavan a la democracia como sistema de creencias compartidas”.En Argentina, los ciudadanos votan introduciendo una papeleta del candidato de su preferencia en un sobre y depositando el sobre cerrado en una urna. Las campañas distribuyen sus papeletas en los centros electorales. Milei y sus aliados afirman que algunas personas han estado robando sus papeletas de los centros electorales, impidiendo a sus partidarios votar por él.Sin embargo, cuando se les ha presionado, Milei y su campaña no han presentado muchas pruebas. Después de que el fiscal electoral argentino pidiera a la campaña de Milei que presentara pruebas, esta declaró que había respondido con videos y fotos de las redes sociales.El hombre que coordina la respuesta de Milei a los funcionarios electorales, Santiago Viola, director jurídico nacional de la campaña, dijo en una entrevista que había recibido entre 10 y 15 quejas por escrito de personas que afirmaban que en sus centros electorales habían faltado papeletas con el nombre de Milei.Viola dijo que creía que funcionarios de campaña de otras partes del país habían recogido otras quejas, pero que él no las había visto. No pudo verificar la afirmación de otro funcionario de la campaña el mes pasado de que había 4500 denuncias de papeletas desaparecidas. El mes pasado votaron más de 26 millones de personas.“Javier maneja los números mejor que yo”, dijo Viola refiriéndose a Milei.Milei afirma que hay “estudios” que demuestran que le robaron el 5 por ciento de los votos en las elecciones primarias, pero no los ha compartido.Argentina utiliza boletas de papel en las elecciones.Daniel Jayo/Associated PressMilei ha dicho que un indicio de fraude es que, al votar, algunos centros electorales no reportaron ningún voto a su favor. Milei afirma que eso es estadísticamente imposible. En realidad, los tres candidatos más votados el mes pasado obtuvieron cero votos en casi el mismo número de centros electorales —aproximadamente 100 cada uno—, sin contar los centros que no registraron ningún voto. Existen 104.520 centros de votación.“No salí a denunciar fraude”, dijo en una entrevista Massa, oponente de Milei. “Puede que haya mesas o urnas donde nadie te vote”.Massa dijo que Milei está siguiendo un manual ya conocido. “Es la misma metodología de Bolsonaro, la misma metodología de Trump”, afirmó.Milei se ha mostrado proclive a las teorías conspirativas. Ha calificado el cambio climático de complot socialista. Ha dicho que duda de los resultados de las elecciones de 2020 y 2022 en Estados Unidos y Brasil. También ha afirmado que los subsiguientes ataques de manifestantes contra edificios gubernamentales de EE. UU. y Brasil no tuvieron nada que ver con Trump o Bolsonaro.En septiembre, Milei dijo a The Economist que se había demostrado que lo ocurrido en Brasil fue organizado por el propio gobierno brasileño. Sin embargo, hay pruebas claras y abundantes de que los partidarios de Bolsonaro asaltaron la capital de Brasil en un intento de revertir la derrota electoral de Bolsonaro.Partidarios de Bolsonaro saquearon el Supremo Tribunal Federal y otros edificios gubernamentales durante un motín en enero.Victor Moriyama para The New York TimesComo candidato presidencial, Milei tiene mucho menos poder del que tenían Trump y Bolsonaro como presidentes en ejercicio cuando denunciaron fraude. Sin embargo, tanto en Estados Unidos como en Brasil, las instituciones gubernamentales que controlaban resistieron en gran medida las acusaciones de fraude.En su lugar, fueron sus partidarios —quienes habían escuchado durante meses denuncias de fraude electoral— quienes asaltaron los edificios del poder.Tras conocerse los resultados de la primera vuelta el mes pasado, Julián Ballester, trabajador de construcción de 21 años, se plantó ante el cuartel general de la campaña de Milei la noche de las elecciones, convencido de que los números estaban amañados. “Tiraron muchas boletas”, dijo, afirmando que había visto fotos en grupos de WhatsApp. “Es evidente el fraude”.La situación en Argentina se ha vuelto más tensa en el último año a medida que la economía se ha ido desmoronando. La inflación anual supera el 140 por ciento, mientras que la pobreza y el hambre han aumentado. Milei ha construido su campaña en parte sobre la afirmación de que una secta oculta de la élite, liderada por Massa, está robando a los argentinos de a pie.El año pasado, un hombre movido por teorías conspirativas apretó el gatillo de una pistola a escasos centímetros de la cara de la vicepresidenta argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, aliada política de Massa.El arma tuvo un desperfecto y no disparó.Milei dijo esta semana que su campaña planeaba combatir el fraude el domingo armando a los 103.000 supervisores electorales de su campaña con boletas, para que pudieran reponer las existencias en los centros electorales en caso de que se robara alguna.Milei afirmó que era una tristeza que su campaña tuviera que recurrir a esas medidas. “¿Te das cuenta las locuras que estamos discutiendo?”.Jack Nicas es el jefe de la corresponsalía en Brasil, que abarca Brasil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay. Anteriormente reportó de tecnología desde San Francisco y, antes de integrarse al Times en 2018, trabajó siete años en The Wall Street Journal. Más de Jack Nicas More

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      Ahead of Argentina’s Presidential Election, Milei Is Already Pointing to Fraud

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      Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian economist, could be elected Argentina’s president on Sunday. If he is not, he has already pointed to fraud.Donald J. Trump’s claims of election fraud already helped inspire one South American leader, former president Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, to sow doubt about the security of his nation’s elections, leading to a riot in Brazil’s capital this year.Now, 1,500 miles to the south, there is a new Latin American politician warning of voter fraud with scant evidence, undermining many of his supporters’ faith in their nation’s election this Sunday.Javier Milei, a far-right libertarian economist and television personality, is competing to become Argentina’s next president in a runoff election. On the campaign trail, he has embraced comparisons to Mr. Trump and Mr. Bolsonaro, and, like them, has repeatedly warned that if he loses, it may be because the election was stolen.Mr. Milei has claimed, without evidence, that stolen and damaged ballots cost him more than a million votes in a primary election in August, or as much as 5 percent of the total.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More