上个月，内华达州一个农村县领导的努力给了选举否认者一个重大胜利:11月，该州的几个管辖区将人工计票。
内华达州国务卿批准了一项提案，允许司法管辖区从今年秋天的中期选举开始人工计票，此前奈县基于2020年总统选举中未经证实的选民欺诈指控，于今年早些时候决定放弃自治领投票机它依赖了多年。
“每个人都说，‘这不是你的问题，不是官员的问题，’”桑德拉·萨姆·梅里诺说，她在今年三月该县决定使用人工计票代替投票机后辞去了县书记的职务。“但人们不明白的是，我信任那些机器以及这个过程是如何运作的。”
上周，梅里诺的继任者马克·坎普夫(Mark Kampf)后退一步，宣布了一项在即将到来的选举中同时使用人工计票和自治领机器的计划，作为交叉检查这两种方法结果的一种方式。
Dominion在2020年大选后被代表特朗普的律师指控参与了一项牵强的计划，将选票从特朗普转移到拜登目前正在起诉一些律师和一些保守的新闻媒体放大了虚假的声明。
“几乎每次选举，我都可以准备好重新计票，因为候选人不相信他们可能会输，”自2000年以来一直在奈县政府服务的共和党人梅里诺告诉美国广播公司新闻。“因此，我对选举舞弊(的指控)并不陌生...但这只是在一个完全不同的规模上。”
“易受攻击的目标”
在唐纳德·特朗普点燃了一场支持者运动那些否认乔·拜登(Joe Biden)赢得2020年选举的人，内华达县已经成为选举否认者希望全国一系列选举区中第一个转向人工计票的地区，这引发了一些选举专家对公众对选举诚信的看法的潜在影响的担忧。
在宾夕法尼亚州、新罕布什尔州、佛罗里达州、科罗拉多州和新墨西哥州，官员们看到要求拆除电子投票机的信件和请愿书有所增加，因为选举否认者和阴谋论者试图改变计票方式。
追踪选举和投票权的无党派组织布伦南正义中心(Brennan Center for Justice)民主项目顾问德里克·蒂斯勒(Derek Tisler)告诉美国广播公司新闻(ABC News)，投票机和技术是阴谋论者的“容易目标”。
他说，“普通选民对电脑工作的了解比选举中的其他过程要少，在选举中，你可以真正看到每一步都发生了什么。”
密执安州英厄姆县的办事员巴布·拜鲁姆说，阴谋论者颠倒了过来——计算机实际上比人计票员更可靠。
“人是犯人为错误的人——制表人不是，”Byrum说，她告诉ABC新闻，她最近开始收到要求该县淘汰投票机的电子邮件。
“一张一张地清点选票，并不能解决他们的阴谋信念，”Byrum说。“如果我们手动计算密歇根州选票上的每一场比赛，我们将等待数周的非官方结果。”
“我更喜欢机器”
随着一些支持者参加地方政府会议并通过社交媒体针对选举官员，取消投票机的运动越来越活跃。他们的努力得到了前大学教授大卫·克莱门茨的鼓励周游全国在中期选举之前传播关于2020年投票的未经证实的说法。
在最近的一次活动中，克莱门茨对人群说:“我们永远不会放弃，直到新墨西哥州的统治权被征服。”。
“我将在任何地方与任何人合作，传播消除被操纵的选举机器的信息，”克莱门茨说，他在2020年大选前开始公开反对新墨西哥州多尼亚阿纳县的投票机。此后，许多专家表示，没有证据表明选举机器被操纵。
多纳阿纳县的办事员阿曼达·洛佩斯·阿斯金告诉美国广播公司新闻，最近，克莱门茨一直在组织追随者参加县委员会会议，并要求当地官员拆除自治领投票机，改用手算。
“如果你去杂货店，我们指望收银员手动添加你的杂货，你会有什么感觉?”洛佩斯·阿斯金说道。“尽管我对人们很有信心，但我知道问题是会发生的。我更喜欢一台经过认证、验证并通过所有严格流程的机器，以确认其准确性。”
当被问及她与选举阴谋论者的遭遇时，洛佩斯·阿斯金说:“我告诉他们的很简单:‘你不明白。“你错了，”"
谎言和错误信息
就在上周，亚利桑那州的一个选举否决组织发起了一项倡议，寻求在该州禁止电子投票机。
“在这些投票机被禁止使用并从我们州移走之前，亚利桑那州无法保证自由和公平的选举，”拯救我的自由创始人米歇尔·斯维克在社交媒体上写道，尽管去年进行了长达数月的选举后审计重申了拜登2020年的胜利而且没有发现大范围的选民欺诈的证据。
在科罗拉多州，极右翼播客乔·奥尔特曼(Joe Oltmann)也一直在传播虚假的选举主张，并要求当地工作人员放弃投票机和软件。
八月下旬，奥尔特曼在他的电报频道上写道:“摆脱机器，否则我们将永远是奴隶。”。
奥尔特曼是被Dominion起诉诽谤的人之一，MyPillow首席执行官迈克·林德尔(Mike Lindell)也是如此，他是特朗普的支持者，组织了两次选民“峰会”，试图争夺2020年的选票。在上个月的活动中，林德尔举办了“机器审判”环节，他呼吁专家将特朗普2020年的失利归咎于投票机的违规行为。
“我们必须淘汰这个国家的每一台机器，不管它们是什么品牌，”林德尔告诉美国广播公司新闻。"我们不能有电脑和电子投票机."
In this Aug. 5, 2022, file photo, Mike Lindell, CEO of MyPillow, speaks during the general session at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas.
中村豪/路透社，档案
Dominion去年2月对Lindell提起的诉讼是寻求13亿美元Dominion表示，林德尔谎称Dominion的机器被用来窃取选票，从而诽谤了该公司。
“谎言和错误信息严重损害了我们的公司，降低了美国选举的可信度，使辛勤工作的公职人员和自治领员工受到骚扰和死亡威胁，”自治领在其网站上说。
即使是不使用统治机器的州也被迫放弃它们。
“我们从选民那里听到的大多数电话和担忧都是人们在说，‘摆脱德克萨斯州的自治领投票机’，”德克萨斯州国务卿发言人山姆·泰勒告诉美国广播公司新闻。“如果他们做一个简单的谷歌搜索，看看我们的网站，他们就会知道我们没有投票机。”
为了回应这样的电话，其他投票机公司说他们已经实施了加强的安全措施。
有选举制度的官员& Software和投票机公司Clear Ballot告诉ABC新闻，他们已经采取了额外的措施来保护他们的员工。
在遍布13个州的Clear Ballot，该公司制造工厂的实际地址被从其网站上删除，员工也接受了如何应对敌对情况的培训。
与此同时，该公司的首席执行官鲍勃·霍伊特(Bob Hoyt)告诉美国广播公司新闻，他们正在利用为选民提供“视觉证据”的新技术来改善投票过程，他们还增加了选民外联，以帮助选民熟悉Clear Ballot的系统和机器。
霍伊特对美国广播公司新闻说:“我们努力在所有不同级别的选举中提供透明度，透明度应该带来信心。”
我们会带你去看机器
宾夕法尼亚州县专员执行主任丽莎·谢弗说，她对目前的投票系统完全有信心。
“投票机经过广泛的逻辑和准确性测试，以确保它们正常工作，并安全地运送到投票站，只有授权的人才能有限地进入，”谢弗告诉美国广播公司新闻。
对于那些质疑其准确性的人，谢弗说，“我们会向你展示机器。我们将向您展示我们用于处理选民登记的流程，这样您就可以知道我们正在确保每个合格选民只能投一票。”
布伦南中心的蒂斯勒说，参加投票工作人员培训会议和投票机演示的怀疑论者经常惊讶地发现，他们关心的许多问题已经被投票机和选举官员彻底考虑过了。
“他们知道程序是如何被滥用的，”蒂斯勒在谈到负责选举的官员时说。“在整个选举过程中，他们制定了检查、复查、三次检查的程序，确保合格选民投票，并准确记录选民的选择。”
“无论你何时使用计算机，都可能存在漏洞，但这不是完全抛弃技术的理由，”Tisler说。“这是了解技术并采取适当保护措施的原因。”
After victory in Nevada, election deniers increase calls to eliminate voting machines across the country
Last month, an effort led by a rural county in Nevada handed election deniers a major victory: In November, several jurisdictions in the state will be hand-counting votes.
The Nevada Secretary of State approved a proposal allowing jurisdictions to hand-count votes starting as soon as this fall's midterm election, after Nye County, based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, decided earlier this year to abandon theDominion voting machinesit had relied on for years.
"Everyone said, 'It's not you, it's not the officials,'" said Sandra "Sam" Merlino, who resigned her position as county clerk after the county in March this year decided to use a hand-count instead of voting machines. "But what people don't understand is, I put my trust in those machines and how the process works."
Last week, Merlino's successor, Mark Kampf -- who himself has been echoing unsubstantiated claims of 2020 election fraud -- took a step back and announced a plan to use both hand counting and the Dominion machines for the upcoming elections as a way to cross-check results between the two methods.
Dominion, which following the 2020 election was accused by lawyers representing Trump of participating in a far-fetched scheme to switch votes from Trump to Biden, iscurrently suinga number of those attorneys as well as several conservative news outlets that amplified the false claims.
"Literally almost every election, I can be ready for a recount because a candidate just doesn't believe they could possibly lose," Merlino, a Republican who had served in Nye County government since 2000, told ABC News. "So it's not that I was new to [accusations of] election fraud ... but this was just on a whole different scale."
An 'easy target'
Nearly two years after Donald Trump ignited amovement of supporterswho deny that Joe Biden won the 2020 election, the Nevada county has become the first in what election deniers hope will be a series of election districts across the country to turn to hand-counting -- prompting concerns among some election experts about the potential impact on the public's perception of election integrity.
In Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado and New Mexico, officials are seeing an increase in letters and petitions demanding the removal of electronic voting machines as election deniers and conspiracy theorists seek to change the way ballots are counted.
Derek Tisler, counsel for the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan organization that tracks elections and voting rights, told ABC News that voting machines and technology are an "easy target" for conspiracy theorists.
"There's less insight into the workings of a computer among just the average voter than the other processes in the election where you can really see what's happening at every step of the way," he said.
Barb Byrum, the clerk for Ingham County in Michigan, said that conspiracy theorists have it backwards -- computers are actually more reliable than human vote counters.
"Humans are the ones who make the human errors -- tabulators do not," said Byrum, who told ABC News that she has recently started receiving emails asking the county to get rid of its voting machines.
"Counting the ballots, one by one, is not the solution to their conspiracy beliefs," Byrum said. "And we will be waiting for weeks for unofficial results if we were to count by hand every single race on the Michigan ballot."
'I would much prefer a machine'
The movement to eliminate voting machines has picked up steam with some supporters attending local government meetings and targeting election officials through social media. Their efforts have been encouraged by David Clements, a former college professor who has beentouring the countryspreading unsubstantiated claims about the 2020 vote ahead of the midterm elections.
"We'll never quit until Dominion is vanquished in New Mexico," Clements told the crowd at a recent event.
"I'll work with anyone, anywhere, to get the message out on getting rid of rigged election machines," said Clements, who began speaking out against voting machines in New Mexico's Doña Ana County prior to the 2020 election. Numerous experts have since said there's no evidence of election machines being rigged.
Doña Ana County Clerk Amanda López Askin told ABC News that lately, Clements has been organizing followers to attend county commission meetings and demand that local officials remove Dominion voting machines in favor of hand counting.
"How would you feel if you went to a grocery store, and we counted on the cashier to manually add your groceries?" said López Askin. "As much as I have faith in people, I understand that problems happen. I would much prefer a machine that has been certified, verified, and has gotten through every rigorous process there is, to confirm its accuracy."
Asked about her encounters with election conspiracy theorists, López Askin said, "What I tell them is simple: 'You don't understand. You're wrong.'"
'Lies and misinformation'
Just last week, an election denial group in Arizona launched an initiative that seeks a ban on electronic voting machines in that state.
"Arizona cannot guarantee free and fair elections until these voting machines are banned from use and removed from our state," wrote Save My Freedom founder Michele Swinick in a social media post, even though a months-long post-election audit last yearreaffirmed Biden’s 2020 victoryby an even bigger margin, and found no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
In Colorado, far-right podcaster Joe Oltmann has also been spreading false election claims and demanding that local clerks abandon voting machines and software.
"Get rid of the machines or we are permanent slaves," Oltmann posted on his Telegram channel in late August.
Oltmann is one of those being sued for defamation by Dominion, as is MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, a vocal Trump supporter who's organized a pair of voter "summits" in an effort tocontest the 2020 vote. At last month's event, Lindell held a "trial of the machines" segment in which he called on experts to blame Trump's 2020 loss on voting machine irregularities.
"We have to get rid of every single machine in this country, no matter what brand they are," Lindell told ABC News. "We can't have computers and electronic voting machines."
Dominion's suit against Lindell, which was filed last February, isseeking $1.3 billionafter Dominion says Lindell defamed the company by falsely claiming that Dominion's machines were used to steal votes.
"Lies and misinformation have severely damaged our company and diminished the credibility of U.S. elections, subjecting hardworking public officials and Dominion employees to harassment and death threats," Dominion says on its website.
Even states that don't use Dominion machines are being pressured to drop them.
"Most of the calls and the concerns that we hear from voters are people saying, 'Get rid of Dominion voting machines in Texas,'" Sam Taylor, a spokesperson for the Texas Secretary of State, told ABC News. "And if they did a simple Google search and looked on our website, they would know that we don't have Dominion voting machines."
In response to calls like these, other voting machine companies say they have implemented enhanced security measures.
Officials with Elections Systems& Software, and fellow voting machine company Clear Ballot, told ABC News they've taken additional measures to protect their employees.
At Clear Ballot, which operates in 13 states, the physical address of the company's manufacturing facility was removed from its website, and staff have been trained in how to respond to a hostile situation.
Meanwhile, the company's CEO, Bob Hoyt, told ABC News that they're working to improve the voting process by utilizing new technology that provides "visual evidence" for voters, and they've also increased voter outreach to help familiarize voters with Clear Ballot's systems and machines.
"We work hard to provide transparency at all different levels of elections, and with transparency should come confidence," Hoyt told ABC News.
'We'll show you the machines'
Lisa Schaefer, executive director of the county commissioners of Pennsylvania, said she has complete confidence in the current voting systems.
"Voting machines go through extensive logic and accuracy tests to make sure they are working properly and that they are securely transported to and from polling places, with limited access only for those authorized," Schaefer told ABC News.
To those who question their accuracy, Schaefer said, "We'll show you the machines. We'll show you the process we use to process voter registration so you can tell that we're making sure that each eligible voter is only accounted for one vote."
Tisler, of the Brennan Center, said that skeptics who attend poll worker training session and voting machine demonstrations are often surprised to often learn that many of their concerns have already been thought through by voting machine and election officials.
"They're aware of how processes can be abused," Tisler said of the officials who run elections. "And they've put in place procedures to check, double check, triple check all the way throughout the election process, and make sure that eligible voters are casting ballots and that they are recording the voter choices accurately."
"There are always vulnerabilities that may exist whenever you're using computers, but that's not a reason to just discard technology altogether," Tisler said. "It's a reason to understand the technology and have safeguards put in place."
