On the eve of the decisive mid-term elections of the American Congress, many controversial discussions have intensified in cyberspace about the elections.
According to Pak Sahafat News Agency, quoted by New York Times, the mid-term elections of the American Congress will be held on Tuesday of this week, and on the eve of these elections, media controversies about it have increased in the virtual space, and the New York Times has addressed 5 common issues in a report.
Most of these controversies are on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, it is based on popular stories about the 2020 US presidential election, including news about interference in elections and voting, news about fraudulent votes, violations of ballot box observers, and rumors about electronic voting (email).
Are the voting machines fake?
According to the election officials, although voting machines sometimes have problems and so-called bugs, these cases are very rare and the equipment is tested before the election day.
For example, in Maricopa County, Arizona, a political battleground and hotbed of conspiracy theories during the 2020 US election, four independent monitors looked at the security of computers that were not connected to the Internet. However, rumors about these devices have increased in recent weeks.
Former US President Donald Trump and his allies announced in 2020 that tabulators had changed votes that were in his name to those of his rival and eventual winner, Joe Biden. According to them, the devices were connected to the Internet, enabling corrupt officials to manipulate the equipment.
In relation to mid-term elections, voting machines are considered one of the common narratives and stories on Twitter, so that in October alone, it was mentioned more than 89,888 times, and this figure compared to the same period in 2021 has almost doubled.
A Wisconsin state representative announced last month that the state’s voting machines were connected to the Internet. Election experts and observers have denied this claim, but Trump republished this rumor on his social network “Truth Social” and wrote: Fraudulent elections, what a disgrace!
This post was republished more than 5 thousand times and liked more than 13 thousand times.
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Election fraud?
During the last month, more than 365,592 “mentions” about “election fraud” were published on Twitter, which has increased by 25% compared to October 2018.
Melody Jennings, a Trump supporter and founder of the group CleanElectionsUS, warned last month about rumors of illegal ballot box stuffing and accused people he called “smugglers” of vote smuggling.
He and other proponents of this theory believe that these smugglers filled the ballot boxes with illegal votes and asked volunteers to guard the boxes. His post was republished more than 3,000 times and liked more than 7,400 times.
The news went so far that in July, a polling station in Maricopa County offered voters to “mark” their ballots.
Using the dead and illegal immigrants without visas?
Rumors about voting with birth certificates and documents of deceased people and illegal immigrants have filled the entire cyber space and this issue was common after the 2020 elections in states such as Arizona, Virginia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia. A small part of the votes has been collected in the name of deceased people.
Rep. Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida, recently said that Democrats are letting illegal immigrants into the country to get them to vote.
“Every illegal alien who votes in our elections should be arrested and returned to their country,” Gaets tweeted.
Electronic voting; Trustworthy or untrustworthy?
Some Republican candidates and voters are taking to social media to express doubts about electronic vote counting.
“Electronic voting” was one of the topics that was “mentioned” more than 338,528 times on Twitter last month; This figure was 137,507 and 114,159 times in October 2021 and 2018, respectively.
Some of those who spoke about election fraud fueled a story last month about the burning of a truck carrying votes in the state of Georgia! The pictures of the burnt truck were shared in the virtual space and the rumor got stronger!
According to the Brennan Center, a non-profit organization active in the field of voter rights, electronic voting has been around for more than 150 years! And cheating on it is extremely rare!
Is the delay in the counting of votes considered a violation?
Official results for many of Tuesday’s election contests will not be announced that night, and it may take several days for votes to be counted. Some users, referring to the delay in recounting votes, have called this issue a source of uncertainty about the integrity of the elections.
Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, wrote last Thursday in response to Pennsylvania’s top election officials expecting it to take several days to count the votes: “Why is it only taking days to count the votes for Democratic blue towns? And other parts of the country will finish counting the same night.”
His tweet was reposted more than 5,500 times and got about 20,000 likes.
Mid-term elections for the United States Senate and House of Representatives will be held on November 8 to elect 435 members of the House of Representatives, 35 senators, 39 governors and a large number of local and state officials across the United States.