America’s presidential election: these new conspiracy theories around voting machines

It’s a story that spread across the state of Georgia like wildfire: in Whitfield County, a voter using a touch-screen voting machine mistakenly chose the name of a candidate she didn’t want to choose. If the incident was avoided – the voter could immediately correct his mistake and vote for the right candidate – the issue took a lot of attention on social networks. Across the country now circulating fake news according to which voting machines from manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems were used to orchestrate massive election fraud, reports the New York Times. Less than two weeks before the results of the American elections, which are against the vice president of the Democrats Kamala Harris to the former Republican president Donald Trumpthese false accusations of electoral fraud are increasing across the country.

At every election in the United States, conspiracy theories accuse, with metronome regularity, machines of changing votes. In 2020, it was Donald Trump himself who spread these rumors after him beat Joe Bidenaccusing the Dominion company of allowing fraud against him during the vote. According to him and his advisers, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and lawyer Sidney Powell, the company was even linked to the Hugo Chavez regime in Venezuela.

Two states, one conspiracy theory

In 2024, rumors of fraud similar to those of 2020 are coming back on social networks, spread by conspiracy theorists, far-right activists but also… In the case of Georgia, it was It was Republican elected official Marjorie Taylor Green who spread the rumor. “This is exactly the kind of fraud we’ve seen in 2020 and it’s unacceptable,” she wrote on her X account, before posting the fake news on Alex Jones’ live stream. Pope conspiracy in the United States and farthest radio host. According to a study by New York Timesla fake news has been read millions of times (3.5 million for Marjorie Taylor Green’s tweet alone), on X, Rumble and other fringe social networks.

The misinformation has become so widespread that it has been rejected by the startup that specializes in online disinfection News Guard. “On social media, right-wing users claimed that this incident showed that voting machines were changing the votes of Georgia voters. However, there is no credible evidence that Dominion voting machines were changing votes in Whitfield county “, relating specifically to the group.

The same conspiracy rumor was also exploded – and also debunked by NewsGuard – in Tarrant County, Texas, where a man claimed in a video that he voted for a candidate… before the voting machine changed his vote.

This proliferation of rumours, even strongly denied, could affect the outcome of the election. “Research shows that the more information we encounter, the more likely we are to believe it to be true. This is linked to cognitive mechanisms: the information is processed more fluidly the second time we see it.” we will get it,” explained in June at. L’Express the sociologist and director of research at the Descartes Foundation, Laurent Cordonier. Increasingly open to these poisoncould all Americans believe, on the evening of November 5, that the election was stolen from them?