Donald Trump hat seine Niederlage gegen Joe Biden vor vier Jahren nie eingestanden. Jetzt verbreitet er gezielt Unwahrheiten, dass es bei der Wahl im November wieder nicht mit rechten Dingen zugehen werde. In den Vereinigten Staaten fällt das auf fruchtbaren Boden. Zwar hat sich das Vertrauen in den Wahlprozess seit 2008 insgesamt kaum verändert und liegt immer noch bei mehr als fünfzig Prozent.
Doch der Anteil der Amerikaner, die sagen, dass sie „überhaupt kein Vertrauen“ in die Wahl haben, ist von sechs Prozent im Jahr 2004 auf knapp ein Fünftel gestiegen. Und war 2016 noch eine Mehrheit der Republikaner der Meinung, dem Wahlergebnis sei grundsätzlich zu trauen, ist es acht Jahre später nur noch gut ein Viertel. Fünf offensichtliche Lügen, mit denen Trump diese Stimmung befeuert:
Lüge 1: Migranten ohne amerikanische Staatsbürgerschaft geben in großer Zahl ihre Stimme ab
Trotzdem streuen die Republikaner die Falschinformation, mehr noch: Sie haben in mehreren Bundesstaaten mindestens acht Klagen eingereicht, die auf die Wählerregistrierung zielen. Die Demokraten sprechen von dem Versuch, das Wahlergebnis schon jetzt zu diskreditieren, die Republikaner wiederum vom Kampf für die „Integrität“ der Wahl. Im Kern zielt diese Behauptung auf die von den Republikanern verbreitete Theorie des „Great Replacement“, den angeblichen Versuch der Demokraten, massenhaft Migranten ins Land zu bringen, um weiße Wähler zu ersetzen und so ihre politische Agenda durchzudrücken. Befeuert hat diese Erzählung auch Trump-Unterstützer Elon Musk. Er schrieb auf seiner Plattform X, die Demokraten „importierten“ Wähler, um einen „Einparteienstaat“ zu schaffen.
Im September behauptete Trump dann plötzlich, es gebe für im Ausland lebende Wähler und Militärangehörige keine Identitätsprüfung vor der Wahl. Die Demokraten nutzten dies, um zu „betrügen“. Auch das stimmt nicht. Die Wahlzettel werden nur an registrierte Wähler verschickt, die zuvor ihre Identität bestätigt haben. Diese Sonderform betrifft außerdem einen sehr geringen Teil der amerikanischen Wählerschaft.
Lie 2: If Trump loses, it must have been fraud
“If I lose, it’s because they cheated. That’s the only way we lose – if they cheat,” Donald Trump said at a rally in Michigan in late September. What was meant was the Democrats. Trump has expressed himself something like this several times during this election campaign. So he is preparing another fraud narrative. Not only Trump, but also his running mate JD Vance remain deliberately vague on the question of whether they will accept the election results.
Vance said in the televised debate against Democrat Tim Walz this week that they only talked about “problems” that existed in the election four years ago. “I think we should argue about these issues and discuss them peacefully in public.” However, the real problem is Kamala Harris. The “censorship” it exercises is “a greater threat to democracy” than has been experienced in recent decades.
To avoid a repeat of the events of January 6, 2021, Congress passed a law two years ago that reforms the process of certifying the election results. In response to the storming of the Capitol, security precautions for the gathering were also significantly tightened. The once routine event now has the same security regulations as the presidential inauguration. There will be security training for journalists accredited to the congress before the election: on how to proceed in emergencies and in the event of evacuations.
Lie 3: There are mass falsifications of postal votes
Four years ago, it was postal voting, which was used much more frequently in the wake of the corona pandemic – and especially by Democrats – that Donald Trump used as a gateway for his claim of a “stolen election”. The Republican is sticking with it this time too. He repeatedly says that there is fraud with postal voting and early voting, “even if some people don’t like it when I say that.”
The Republicans have seen that skepticism about postal voting can harm them. When there were problems with the voting machines in Arizona in the 2022 congressional election, many citizens left the long lines in front of the polling stations in frustration. Republican candidates lost by a few hundred votes.
Even in this year’s close race, every vote counts, which is why a majority of Republicans are now calling for early voting. Trump himself is taking a zigzag course. At a recent campaign rally in Pennsylvania, he called on his supporters to vote early, but in the same breath called it “stupid” and claimed that a fifth of the postal votes in the state were fraudulent. There is no evidence of this.
It is standard procedure in the United States for election observers from both parties to be able to follow the events on election day. But Trump has also called this a fight for “election integrity”. Already in the spring he said that they wanted to deploy 100,000 volunteers and lawyers to monitor the vote counting – an “army”.
Chris LaCivita, one of Trump’s campaign managers, suggested in July that it could take a long time after the election on November 5th until the result is final: “It’s not over until he puts his hand on the Bible and the oath After the 2020 election, the Republicans failed with more than sixty lawsuits in several states with which they wanted to cast doubt on the election results. The only lawsuit that initially received a positive decision was later overturned by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. It was about the distance between the election observers and the counting process.
Lie 4: The candidate change from Biden to Harris was a constitutional violation
Donald Trump was caught unprepared when Joe Biden unexpectedly dropped out of the race at the end of July. He spoke of an “unconstitutional coup” and claimed that Kamala Harris had “stolen” the presidency from Biden. Probably also because she quickly caught up with Trump in the polls. With Biden, the Republican lost the man on whom he had largely based his election campaign. And so he resorted to portraying the change as a set-up by the Democrats.
The tenor: Americans are being presented with a fait accompli in an unconstitutional manner. Ultimately, Harris didn’t get any votes in the primaries. But Biden dropped out even before he became the official Democratic nominee and appeared on the ballot. He instructed his electors to vote for Harris. She, in turn, was nominated as the party’s official candidate at the party conference in August in accordance with the usual rules.
Lie 5: Election workers manipulate the result
These days, Donald Trump is toughening his tone towards election workers, whom he sees as “corrupt.” He recently wrote in a social media post that if he won, those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” would be identified and prosecuted – “on a scale that, unfortunately, has never been seen before in our country.” It’s a familiar pattern for Trump to accuse election officials and aides of working against him. Four years ago, he and his supporters sometimes published their names and publicly spread lies about them. Last year, a court awarded two Georgia women $148 million in damages from Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former lawyer. They had been harassed and treated racistly following false accusations.
At a rally in Pennsylvania in September, Trump said he wondered “what the hell” was happening at polling stations during the days of early voting and suggested ballots were being destroyed at will. Because of such claims, more and more election workers fear for their safety. American media are talking about a “high security election” in November. Many polling stations are equipped with bulletproof glass and panic buttons in the event of attacks.
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