时代周刊:揭秘拯救2020年大选的"影子运动秘史"(8)（在线收听）

The effort had to overcome heightened skepticism in some communities.

这一努力必须克服一些社区日益加深的怀疑。

Many Black voters preferred to exercise their franchise in person or didn't trust the mail.

许多黑人选民宁愿亲自行使他们的选举权，也不相信邮件。

National civil rights groups worked with local organizations to get the word out that this was the best way to ensure one's vote was counted.

全国民权组织与地方组织合作，宣传这是确保一个人的选票被统计的最佳方式。

In Philadelphia, for example, advocates distributed "voting safety kits" containing masks, hand sanitizer and informational brochures.

例如，在费城，支持者分发了“投票安全工具包”，包括口罩、洗手液和信息手册。

"We had to get the message out that this is safe, reliable, and you can trust it," says Hannah Fried of All Voting Is Local.

“我们必须让人们知道，这是安全、可靠的，你可以信任它，”汉娜·弗里德(Hannah Fried)在谈到所有投票都是本地的时说。

At the same time, Democratic lawyers battled a historic tide of pre-election litigation.

与此同时，民主党的律师们在选举前进行了一场历史性的诉讼。

The pandemic intensified the parties' usual tangling in the courts. But the lawyers noticed something else as well.

这种流行病加剧了双方惯常在法庭上的纠缠。但律师们还注意到了别的事情。

"The litigation brought by the Trump campaign, of a piece with the broader campaign to sow doubt about mail voting, was making novel claims and using theories no court has ever accepted,"

纽约大学布伦南司法中心的投票权专家温迪·威瑟表示：“特朗普竞选团队提出的诉讼，与更广泛的竞选团队一起散布对邮件投票的怀疑，提出了新颖的主张，

says Wendy Weiser, a voting-rights expert at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU. "They read more like lawsuits designed to send a message rather than achieve a legal outcome."

并使用了从未被任何法院接受的理论。”“它们读起来更像是旨在传递信息的诉讼，而不是为了达成法律结果。”

In the end, nearly half the electorate cast ballots by mail in 2020, practically a revolution in how people vote.

最终，在2020年，将近一半的选民通过邮件投票，这实际上是一场投票方式的革命。

About a quarter voted early in person. Only a quarter of voters cast their ballots the traditional way: in person on Election Day.

大约四分之一的人亲自提前投票。只有四分之一的选民以传统的方式投票:在选举日亲自投票。

Bad actors spreading false information is nothing new.

坏人传播虚假信息并不是什么新鲜事。

For decades, campaigns have grappled with everything from anonymous calls claiming the election has been rescheduled to fliers spreading nasty smears about candidates' families.

几十年来，竞选团队一直在努力应对各种各样的问题，从声称选举已被重新安排的匿名电话，到散布对候选人家庭的肮脏诽谤的传单。

But Trump's lies and conspiracy theories, the viral force of social media and the involvement of foreign meddlers made disinformation a broader, deeper threat to the 2020 vote.

但特朗普的谎言和阴谋论、社交媒体的病毒式传播以及外国干预者的介入，让虚假信息成为了对2020年大选更广泛、更深层次的威胁。

Laura Quinn, a veteran progressive operative who co-founded Catalist, began studying this problem a few years ago.

劳拉·奎因是一位经验丰富的进步派特工，也是Catalist的联合创始人，她在几年前开始研究这个问题。

She piloted a nameless, secret project, which she has never before publicly discussed, that tracked disinformation online and tried to figure out how to combat it.

她开展了一个匿名的秘密项目，在网上追踪虚假信息，并试图找出应对之策。她之前从未公开讨论过这个项目。

One component was tracking dangerous lies that might otherwise spread unnoticed. Researchers then provided information to campaigners or the media to track down the sources and expose them.

其中一个部分是追踪危险的谎言，否则这些谎言可能会在不被注意的情况下传播。然后，研究人员向活动人士或媒体提供信息，以追踪并曝光这些信息的来源。