The anomalous magnetic moment of the electron ae = (ge −2)/2 = 0.00115965218073(28)is the most precisely measured quantity in physics, known to 13 significant figures. TheQED derivation (Schwinger 1948 at leading order; Aoyama et al. 2019 at twelfth order) reproduces this value to 10 significant figures through a perturbative expansion in α/(2π) ≈ 1.1614 × 10−3. We propose a geometric reinterpretation: ae arises as a commensurability defect between the electron’s internal 861-node toroidal lattice and the global DSM-861 vacuum grid, producing torsional strain energy Emis f it that shifts ge away from the Dirac value 2. The leading-order identification ae ≈ α/(2π) = (1/12) × (1/72) × [1 + O(α)] providesa geometric interpretation of the Schwinger term. Higher-order corrections correspond to iterated gear-misfit interactions. We present the complete derivation chain at leading order, identify the three open gaps that prevent claiming agreement with the 13-figure QED result, and propose this as a geometric complement to QED rather than a replacement for it. The framework suggests that the fine-structure constant itself encodes the ratio of the electron’s internal clock speed to the vacuum gear-lock rate.