2026-06-09T20:26:26.356Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/09/politics/voter-fraud-theories-california
- 上周的加州初选再度引发了选举欺诈指控，让人联想到2020年的情形。
- 但这些阴谋论既经不起推敲，在政治逻辑上也说不通。
- 面对缺乏证据的现状，一些共和党领导人如今辩称，欺诈确实存在，只是无法被侦测到。
本文由AI生成摘要，并经CNN编辑审核。
上周是2020年大选结束以来，选举否认论出现的最大规模回潮。不少右翼人士对加州6月2日初选结果中后期向民主党倾斜的趋势提出了抗议。
但和六年前的情况一样，绝大多数声称存在选民欺诈的理论都经不起推敲。
与此同时，一些共和党高层似乎越来越多地以“欺诈无法被侦测”为由，来应对明显缺乏证据的局面。
我们来梳理一下几起最受关注的所谓舞弊证据，以及它们为何并非表面看上去那样。
阴谋论在上周开始发酵，当时两名共和党候选人的得票率在选举夜后出现下滑。
州长候选人史蒂夫·希尔顿在选举夜位居第一，但随着更多选票被统计，他似乎有跌出前两名的风险。而洛杉矶市长竞选的热门共和党候选人斯宾塞·普拉特，在选举夜曾大幅领先民主党洛杉矶市议员妮提亚·拉曼，领先优势却在之后逐渐被缩小。
一周后，在这场官方非党派竞选里，拉曼击败普拉特，获得了与现任市长凯伦·巴斯对决的第二名席位，而希尔顿则继续领先民主党人汤姆·斯泰尔，保住州长竞选的第二名位置。
这一幕似曾相识。
2020年大选最常被提及的所谓选民欺诈证据，就是后期统计的选票往往偏向民主党，在某些情况下甚至扭转了特朗普在选举夜领先的摇摆州结果。
但这背后有非常合理的解释：麻省理工学院研究人员的分析发现，拜登的票仓——通常是选票众多的城区——统计和上报选票的速度往往慢于特朗普的票仓。
而日益扩大的邮寄选票党派差距加剧了这一现象：邮寄选票通常更晚被统计，且民主党人使用邮寄选票的比例远高于共和党人（这在很大程度上是因为特朗普曾声称邮寄选票容易滋生欺诈）。
这种综合效应通常被称为“红色海市蜃楼”。
加州将“红色海市蜃楼”效应放大到极致，因为该州大量使用邮寄选票，且计票耗时极长。事实上，此前各界早已预测，民主党将在选举夜后获得显著增长。
至关重要的是，当前的选举结果与民调结果非常吻合。
巴斯的支持率为34%，拉曼为29%，普拉特为26%。拉曼领先普拉特3个百分点，与加州大学伯克利分校和《洛杉矶时报》近期的一项民调结果一致（拉曼25%，普拉特22%）。
此外，普拉特的得票率与特朗普2024年在洛杉矶市获得的26.5%支持率相近。
即便如此，一些右翼人士仍在质疑，拉曼的支持率激增究竟该如何解释。另一名民主党人巴斯的支持率，实际上在计票过程中出现了百分比层面的下滑。
如果仅仅是后期选票偏向民主党，那为何拉曼的支持率大幅上升，而巴斯的支持率却出现下滑？
这里有几个合理的解释。
其一，民主党选民针对加州不同寻常的“前两名晋级”初选制度采取了战略投票。根据该制度，无论党派归属，得票第一和第二的候选人均可进入大选。这种说法认为，民主党选民延迟邮寄选票，就能更清楚地知晓哪些候选人能够获胜，或至少能进入大选。
《洛杉矶时报》甚至在初选前两天就刊发了相关报道，指出州长竞选的参选人数十分拥挤。CNN的伊莱克斯·迈克埃尔森也采访了一些民主党选民，他们表示自己为确保普拉特无法晋级，延迟为拉曼投票。
但还有一个 arguably（可更合理地说）更站得住脚的解释，《选票手册》的梅森·赫伦周一就此撰文分析。
其核心逻辑是：那些延迟邮寄选票的选民，整体年龄比提前投票的选民年轻得多，而拉曼的支持者群体也更偏向年轻化。鉴于此，这位民主社会主义者在后期获得大量支持也就合情合理，而拥有更年长支持者基础的巴斯，则会损失部分支持率。
这对拉曼来说并非首次经历。在2024年她的市议员席位初选中，投票结束后的数小时内，她与民主党对手的竞争十分胶着——以至于多家媒体报道称，这场竞选（选举夜次日早晨她以45%-43%领先）将进入决选。
但拉曼并未进入决选。得益于后期统计的邮寄选票，她的得票率突破了50%，并以12个百分点的优势赢得了这场看似势均力敌的选举。
即便暂且抛开这些不谈，洛杉矶市长竞选的选民欺诈论也存在一个重大缺陷：基本逻辑不通。
正如CNN的哈里·恩滕周一指出的那样，巴斯实际上更希望普拉特进入大选。因为在深蓝的洛杉矶，共和党人几乎没有获胜的可能，而普拉特的不受欢迎程度与巴斯不相上下。
但如果对手是民主社会主义者拉曼，那对巴斯来说就是大麻烦。
事实上，加州大学伯克利分校-《洛杉矶时报》的民调显示，巴斯领先普拉特18个百分点（47%-29%），但却落后拉曼4个百分点（28%-32%）。
即便存在工会等团体的“选票收集”行为，这些团体也大多支持巴斯，因此选举结果也无法支撑这一理论。
再加上希尔顿似乎仍有望进入州长竞选的大选阶段，问题就变成了：如果民主党人为阻止普拉特而操纵市长选举，为何不一同阻止希尔顿？
社交媒体上流传的另一个阴谋论称， tally（计票）中被添加了大量选票——事实上多达数万张——且普拉特的得票为零。
但这毫无事实依据。这似乎是美联社更新选票总数时出现延迟导致的结果。
就连特朗普政府时期的司法部也已驳斥了这一说法。
特朗普任命的第一助理美国检察官比尔·埃塞利领导着驻洛杉矶的美国检察官办公室，他在周五午夜前发帖称，此类说法是错误的。
“我们审查了官方县郡记录，该说法是虚假的，”埃塞利表示，“每次更新时，每位候选人都获得了选票。”
一些共和党人越来越多地承认，没有证据证明存在选民欺诈，但他们辩称，这并不意味着欺诈没有发生。
他们暗示，欺诈只是无法被侦测到。
“其中一些手段极其阴险，且发生在非常早期的阶段，根本无法证明，”众议院议长迈克·约翰逊周一告诉CNN的马努·拉朱，“但所有人都本能地觉得这里面有问题。”
（约翰逊此前也曾就无证移民投票的普遍性发表过类似言论，他在2024年表示：“我们都凭直觉知道，有大量非法移民在联邦选举中投票，但这并非轻易就能证实的事情。”目前没有证据表明存在大规模无证移民投票的情况。）
拉朱周二随后就缺乏证据一事质询了约翰逊的副手、众议院多数党领袖史蒂夫·斯卡利斯。
斯卡利斯回应称：“无论你能否证明欺诈存在，这都会损害选举的公正性。”
诚然，确实有人在破坏选举的公正性。
Why the GOP’s voter fraud theories in California don’t make sense
2026-06-09T20:26:26.356Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/09/politics/voter-fraud-theories-california
- Last week’s California primaries have sparked a resurgence of election fraud claims reminiscent of 2020.
- But these conspiracy theories don’t withstand scrutiny, nor do they make much political sense.
- And confronted with the lack of evidence, some GOP leaders are now arguing the fraud is real but it’s just not detectable.
AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.
The last week has brought the largest resurgence of election denialism since the aftermath of the 2020 election. Many on the right have cried foul over late shifts toward Democrats in results from California’s June 2 primary.
But as was the case six years ago, the vast majority of the theories about why voter fraud is involved don’t withstand scrutiny.
And increasingly, some top Republicans seem to be dealing with the pronounced lack of evidence by arguing that the fraud is just undetectable.
Let’s run through some of the biggest supposed evidence of malfeasance, and why it’s not what it might seem.
The conspiracy theories began bubbling last week as two GOP candidates saw their vote shares drop after primary night.
Gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton was in first place on election night but appeared at risk of dropping out of the top two as more votes rolled in. And Spencer Pratt, the buzzy Republican candidate for Los Angeles mayor, suddenly saw his significant election-night lead over third-place Nithya Raman, a Democratic Los Angeles City councilwoman, gradually get whittled away.
A week later, Raman has beaten Pratt for the second slot against incumbent Mayor Karen Bass in what’s officially a nonpartisan race, even as Hilton continues to hold off Democrat Tom Steyer for second place in the governor’s race.
This is familiar territory.
Perhaps the most oft-cited supposed evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 election was how late-counted ballots tended to go for Democrats, in some cases flipping swing states where Donald Trump was leading on election night.
But there was a very valid explanation for that: An analysis by MIT researchers found that Joe Biden counties — often urban ones with lots of votes — tended to count and report more slowly than Trump counties.
And that was exacerbated by the growing partisan gap in mail ballots, which tend to be counted later and which Democrats use much more than Republicans (in large part because Trump has claimed they are prone to fraud).
The combined effect is often called the “red mirage.”
California puts the “red mirage” on steroids, because of its extensive use of mail ballots and how long it takes to count them. Indeed, it was predicted far and wide that Democrats would gain significantly after primary night.
And crucially, the current results look a lot like the polls did.
Bass stands at 34%, Raman at 29% and Pratt at 26%. That three-point Raman lead over Pratt is the same as a late UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll (Raman 25%, Pratt 22%).
What’s more, Pratt’s vote share is similar to the 26.5% that Trump got in the city of Los Angeles in 2024.
Even so, some on the right have wondered what could possibly explain the size of Raman’s surge. The other Democrat, Bass, actually lost ground, percentage-wise, as ballots were counted.
If this was just about late ballots leaning Democratic, why would Raman gain so much and Bass lose ground, as a percentage?
There are a couple of valid explanations.
One is that Democratic voters were being strategic about California’s unusual top-two primary system, in which the first- and second-place candidates advance regardless of party. By waiting to cast their mail ballots, the idea goes, they had a better idea of who could win or at least advance to the general election.
The Los Angeles Times even wrote a story about this trend two days before primary day, noting how crowded the governor’s race was. And CNN’s Elex Michaelson spoke to Democrats who said they voted late for Raman in order to make sure Pratt didn’t advance.
But there’s arguably an explanation that makes even more sense, which the Ballot Book’s Mason Herron wrote about on Monday.
It basically boils down to this: Those who cast late mail ballots skewed much younger than those who cast earlier votes, and Raman’s base also skews younger. Given that, it would make sense that the democratic socialist would gain big late, while Bass — with her older base — would lose some ground.
And this is familiar territory for Raman. In her 2024 primary for her city council seat, she was in a tight race with her Democratic opponent in the hours after polls closed — so much so that news outlets were writing that the contest (which she led 45%-43% the morning after primary night) was headed for a runoff.
But Raman didn’t need a runoff. She surged over 50%, thanks to late-counted mail ballots. And she won what had looked like a tight race by 12 points.
Even if you set all that aside, though, the voter fraud theories in the Los Angeles mayor’s race suffer from a major deficit: basic logic.
As CNN’s Harry Enten noted Monday, Bass would have actually preferred if Pratt had advanced to the general election. That’s because a Republican stands very little chance of winning in deep-blue Los Angeles, and Pratt was about as unpopular as Bass was.
But Raman, a democratic socialist opponent, on the ballot? That’s a major problem for Bass.
Indeed, that late UC Berkeley-LA Times poll showed Bass leading Pratt by 18 points (47%-29%), but trailing Raman by four (28%-32%).
And even if there was “ballot harvesting” by labor unions and the like, those groups tended to support Bass, so the results wouldn’t support that theory.
And then throw in the fact that Hilton still appears likely to make the general election for governor, and the question becomes why Democrats would rig the mayoral race to stop Pratt but not Hilton.
Another conspiracy theory floating on social media is that large numbers of votes were added to the tallies — tens of thousands of them, in fact — with precisely zero for Pratt.
But there’s no truth to that. It appears to be a result of a lag in how the Associated Press updated its vote totals.
And even Trump’s own DOJ has debunked this one.
First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli, a Trump appointee who leads the Los Angeles-based US attorney’s office, posted just before midnight on Friday that such claims were wrong.
“We reviewed official county records. The claim is false,” Essayli said. “Each candidate received votes in every update.”
Some Republicans increasingly acknowledge the lack of evidence of voter fraud, but they argue that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
They suggest the fraud is just undetectable.
“Some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it is impossible to prove,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju on Monday. “But think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.”
(Johnson has previously made similar comments about the prevalence of undocumented immigrants voting, saying in 2024, “We all know intuitively that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections, but it’s not been something that is easily provable.” There is no evidence of significant undocumented immigrant voting.)
Raju on Tuesday then pressed Johnson’s No. 2, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, about the lack of evidence.
Scalise responded: “Whether you can prove fraud or not, it does undermine integrity in the vote.”
It’s certainly true that someone is undermining the integrity of the vote.