Arizona | The shadow of suspicion hangs over the presidential election

(Surprise) To referee the close duel between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Camille Kroskey waited until election day to come to the polls. Voting by mail was unthinkable for this Republican voter from Arizona, a key state plagued by conspiracy.

“I want to make sure that I cast my ballot where it will really land somewhere,” this 62-year-old medical assistant told AFP on Tuesday in front of the town hall of Surprise, in the suburbs of Phoenix. “Now will it be counted? […] I don’t know. »

Stuffed ballot boxes, hacked electoral machines, manipulated mail votes… for years, Donald Trump has been making accusations of imaginary fraud, amplified by an ecosystem of online disinformation.

As a result, suspicion is eating away at American democracy like a cancer. The symptoms are particularly severe in Arizona, where the Republican billionaire lost by less than 10,500 votes in 2020 against Joe Biden.

This unprecedented defeat, poorly accepted in a state which had not voted for a Democratic president since Bill Clinton, is fueling all kinds of psychoses.

For example, armed lookouts monitored certain ballot boxes in 2022 for the mid-term elections. During this election, technical problems affecting certain electoral machines also caused scandal in Maricopa County, the most populous in the state, where Surprise is located.

This caused long queues at some polling stations. The court ruled that no one was deprived of voting, but some local Republicans still dispute their defeat.

” Not sure ”

“In all the years we’ve been voting, how can we suddenly start having problems with the voting machines? », indignant M^me Kroskey.

“Our system is not secure. We are not sure that everyone is counted appropriately,” she complains, explaining that one of her work colleagues received three ballots at home, which she believes could allow her to commit fraud.

Arizona will be closely scrutinized again this year. In 2020, angry armed demonstrators protested several nights in a row in front of the Maricopa County electoral center, during the long ballot counting operations.

To try to stop the spiral of conspiracy, fueled by Donald Trump who is already assuring his supporters that “cheating” is likely this year, local electoral officials are increasing their transparency. Cameras broadcast live counting operations in the Maricopa County election center.

Tuesday afternoon, Arizona elections official Adrian Fontes assured that “overall, […] election day is going very well in most of the state. »

This elected Democrat nevertheless mentioned “minor problems”.

Some voting machines experienced technical problems in Apache County, where many Native people live. This caused long queues and local authorities requested an extension of the opening of polling stations after 7 p.m., according to local media.

By afternoon, those issues were being resolved, Fontes said, and “most sites in Apache County” were “up and running.”

False “bomb threats” from “Russia” also targeted neighboring Navajo County, he added. But “no polling station closed in this region. »

” Cheating ”

Despite this real-time transparency, confidence in the electoral process appears to be lastingly shaken.

In August, less than half of Republican voters (47%) in the United States were confident that the presidential election would be “conducted fairly,” according to a Pew Research Center study.

In front of Surprise town hall, several Republican volunteers who came to distribute leaflets are very suspicious. A distrust reinforced by local rules in Arizona, which often extend the counting of votes well after the election.

“I have doubts,” Bob Branch, 66, told AFP, because “we won’t know tonight who won or lost. »

Under his “Trump 2024” camouflage cap, this university professor is convinced that immigrants who do not have American nationality vote in other states. A technically possible phenomenon, but heavily punished by law and described as infinitesimal by experts.

“It’s a method that allows fraud,” he believes. “So is there cheating?” Absolutely. Is it enough to steal an election? I hope not.”