Table, United States. Planted in their chairs, Gabor Zolna and two friends film a ballot box in a parking lot in the suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona (southwest), in which the votes for the mid-term elections in the United States are to be cast.
“It’s a deterrent,” says Zolna, a 78-year-old retiree as he points to his cameras, a gun holster visible under his jacket.
“We’re really here to deter people who want to come put (fake) ballots in the polls,” adds Nicole, another 52-year-old retiree who doesn’t want to give her last name, and whose face is hidden behind a mask, dark glasses. and a cap.
With the mission of “saving the Republic”, the trio is convinced that the Republican tycoon Donald Trump (2017-2021) was re-elected in 2020, but that the United States presidential elections were rigged.
Democrat Joe Biden beat him in Arizona by just 10,000 votes. Traditionally Republican, this southwestern state hasn’t elected a Democratic president since Bill Clinton.
Although multiple investigations concluded that there was no electoral fraud in 2020, this trio of friends remains convinced. They also insist that “the earth is flat” and that man “never went to the moon.”
For a few days now, tension has risen dangerously around this lonely ballot box, located in front of the juvenile court in Mesa, near Phoenix.
armed vigilantes
On Friday, the local sheriff intervened to dissuade two armed men dressed in camouflage who had come to stand guard in front of the ballot box.
Several people have made complaints amid suspicions of a pressure campaign coordinated by a group of “patriots” self-proclaimed “Clean Elections USA” and therefore the police presence has increased.
Kristin Wilde, who unwittingly took the risk. “It’s weird. I’ve already filled out my ballot, so I’m not going to change my vote. But if I had known about the guns, I wouldn’t have come here,” she says.
