| | |  | BY MYAH WARD AND RENUKA RAYASAM | PRACTICE SAFE VOTING — President Donald Trump questioned the integrity of U.S. elections during last night’s debate even as nearly 1 million Americans have already voted, in person and by mail. He ratcheted up the untrue claims he’s been making for months — West Virginia mail carriers are “selling” mail-in ballots or mail ballots are being “dumped” in rivers and creeks — fostering new fears that he won’t accept the election results if he were to lose to Joe Biden. “This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen,” the president said. He added that he is “counting” on the Supreme Court to “look at the ballots.” Mail voting and no-excuse absentee voting have been in wide use in American elections for years. But the president’s pledge to contest the validity of mail ballots have some voters wondering if they should vote in person to make sure their vote counts. Is it safe to vote in person during a pandemic? Nightly talked to some of our go-to public health experts and epidemiologists about the safety of in-person voting, and asked them what method they plan to use to vote this year. Below are their edited responses. “I was one of the people on the amicus brief to the Tennessee State Supreme Court to try to get the state to allow absentee voting for anyone nervous about Covid-19 risks. “The way our in-person voting works in most districts makes it hard to ensure good social distancing and minimize crowding. The more we can avoid gathered crowds, the better. So it’s safest if there aren’t long lines or packed booths. It’s also a significant risk for the polling workers themselves, especially in states that require ID checks, because they have to interact directly with large numbers of people. My own belief is that a civilized democratic society should never ask you to weigh the safety of yourself or your family to participate in an election in any way that could reasonably be avoided. “If I am allowed to do so in ways that I feel confident will be counted, I will absolutely prefer to vote by mail because my household includes someone in a high risk category for severe outcomes from Covid-19 infection. If I am not allowed to vote by mail, or confident my vote will be allowed to count because of a shifting court decision, I believe strongly enough that our safety as a nation over the longer term than just this Covid-19 outbreak is at stake that I will show up at the polls in person, wearing a mask and trying to social distance from others, and I will hope to pick a time when few others have made the same decision.” — Nina Fefferman, evolutionary biologist and epidemiologist at The University of Tennessee Knoxville “I think it most certainly CAN BE safe to vote in person, depending on the precautions taken by the individual in question, the election workers, the polling station, and your fellow voters who are engaging in this immensely important right we have as citizens of a democracy. Check out the polling station to which you are assigned. Are they requiring masks to be worn by voters and polling workers? Are they taking steps to encourage social distancing while waiting in line and when in the polling booth? You are likely to wait quite a while, especially if you vote on Election Day, and if possible, most of that wait time should be spent outdoors. “If you are personally in a high-risk category, if there is increasing community transmission locally, if you feel as though the necessary precautions are not being implemented in your polling station, there’s nothing wrong with requesting an absentee ballot and voting by mail. “We’ll be voting by mail, but it’s because my wife simply thought it would be easier.” — Jason Salemi, University of South Florida epidemiologist “Based on the rate of Covid-19 in your community, along with your own risk and the risk of those with whom you have contact, you can determine how safe it is to vote. You can eliminate risk by voting absentee and reduce risk by following the three W’s — wear a mask, watch your distance, wash your hands. Because I am in regular contact with people at higher risk of severe illness and death from Covid-19 (particularly my 91-year-old mother), I will file an absentee ballot.” — Tom Frieden, former CDC director and president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives “My polling place is quiet, not very crowded, and if I vote early in the day when crowds and lines are not an issue, I think it is safe to vote in person. Those who know from experience that their polling place is crowded, prone to long lines, and those who have underlying health issues should vote by mail. “I am going to vote in person, because I think this is a very important election, and I have concerns about the current administration, in particular the Postmaster General, actively engaging in shenanigans that will compromise the integrity of vote by mail. I urge people with underlying health issues to vote as soon as possible, before Oct. 15, if they intend to vote by mail. For those who vote in person, I would urge them to arrive at their polling location very early in the day, before crowds appear.” — Mark R. Schleiss, pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota Medical School “Voting in person is comparable to going to a grocery store: You can mitigate risk of exposure with masks, ample sanitizer and layout/traffic flow that minimizes direct contact. And just as with a grocery store, the risk is greater for workers who are there for longer and are more likely to have direct contact. “I have requested a mail-in ballot. This is not because of the risks I would be taking (see my answer above), but because this was the recommended route per my board of elections.” — Marta E. Wosińska, deputy director at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy “Researchers looked at the impact of in-person voting during the Wisconsin primary election this spring and found that, at most, in-person voting might have been responsible for up to 700 infections over the next month. That’s 700 people who might not have gotten infected if they hadn’t voted but it’s still quite a small proportion of the voters. And that election happened before we had wide-spread face mask use. “I’m a Canadian so I’m not voting.” — Ellie Murray, professor of epidemiology at Boston University School of Public Health “In my view, scientists (just like athletes, teachers, etc.) are also civic actors and questions about voting should not focus narrowly on ‘safety’; voting is such a profoundly key part of our democracy. None of us will be safe if we collectively abdicate our right to vote. “Each eligible voter should have a plan to vote, whether by mail, early (but in person), or in person on Election Day. Masks should be required at all voting locations, for the protection of poll workers, observers and voters. A combination of mandated mask-wearing and physical spacing will reduce the time voters spend indoors when voting, thereby reducing Covid-19 transmission risk. Individuals at an elevated risk for severe outcomes if infected with Covid-19 should take steps now to vote by mail in compliance with their state’s guidelines. “I plan to vote early (in person) here in Georgia at the McCamish Pavilion on Georgia Tech’s campus. This reduces uncertainty on Election Day, e.g., in the event of inclement weather.” — Joshua Weitz, professor of quantitative biosciences at Georgia Tech “Voting is a low risk activity, on par with other low-risk and critically important activities we all need to do like grocery shopping or going to the pharmacy. “I will be voting in person this year, masked up, because the risks are very low (and the stakes are very high).” — Joseph Allen, associate professor and director of the Healthy Buildings program at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.
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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden greets people at a campaign stop at the Alliance Amtrak Station in Ohio. Biden was on a daylong rail trip across Ohio and Pennsylvania after Tuesday night’s debate with President Donald Trump. | Getty Images | | | NFL’S FIRST COVID TIMEOUT — Sunday’s NFL game between the Tennessee Titans and Pittsburgh Steelers has been postponed after 10 Titans players tested positive for Covid. The game was to be played in Nashville, but the visiting team was from western Pennsylvania, a 2020 battleground: Biden’s first post-debate stop was Pittsburgh, and Trump, who has pushed for continued football through the pandemic, is popular in much of Steelers Country. The Covid postponement, four weeks into the season, highlights the challenges in bringing sports back, unbubbled. The NFL has faced intense criticism for ignoring serious player brain injuries and racial justice calls until recently. Covid-positive players add fuel to the claims that league owners aren’t concerned with player safety. Nightly chatted today with Myron Rolle, a Rhodes scholar and a former NFL safety with the Titans and Steelers, who is now treating Covid patients as a third-year neurosurgeon resident at Massachusetts General Hospital. We talked about whether he would play this season if he were still in the NFL, his conversations with current players, and whether he thinks the league cares about its players. This conversation has been edited. Given what we have seen with the Titans, do you think the NFL should have postponed this season? I do not think that they should have moved forward initially. I still hold that sentiment. It was rather dangerous and ambitious to try to start a league without a true bubble like the NBA had. I think they should have delayed and used all the information available to see where the pandemic was going. I feel that at the end of the day, the NFL, the business, they have a product to sell. They want to get their game going. I’m just not sure if they had the players’ health and safety as a premium on their mind. I guess that means you wouldn’t play right now if you were still in the league? No, I wouldn’t feel comfortable. I would have been one of the players who opted out, certainly. I guess I’m a little biased because I do have some information on Covid-19, having taken care of patients. I actually operated on a Covid-19 patient the other day. We saw A.J. Terrell, an amazing football player for the Atlanta Falcons, succumb to some of his symptoms and miss a game. Whenever my teammates call me and ask me how things are going, or is this real, or should I believe what I hear on the TV, I tell them: I wish I could bring you into the hospital with me. We’re not speaking in hyperbole when we say how serious it is. You know, I just became a new father to twins six weeks ago. I thought that Covid always was potentially just a disruptor to not only the patient’s life, but the family’s life as well. Have you spoken with any of your former teammates at the Titans about the outbreak? Not at the Titans. Most of my teammates who used to play for the Titans now play for the Lions or the Patriots. They are nervous. Some of them were nervous about the accuracy and the technical aspects of testing. They said initially when they got swabbed, it was aggressive. It was what you would expect. As the season progressed, and they had to get tested every single day, even an off day, they had to come back to the facility and get tested, some testers were a little bit more cavalier. They had concerns about traveling. A lot of them said when they were doing training camp, they felt OK about everything. But as soon as you open up the variable of going on a bus, going on a plane, getting from the hotel to the facility, you have the added factor of people who may not have the same coverage statuses as you, or may not have been tested like you, or may not have been in a sort of bubble like you. They’re all keeping their eyes open. They’re wondering what’s gonna happen next. Do you think the league cares about player health? No, I think they were slow to react on players’ health, in particular, players’ mental health. That’s from organic causes. Brain bleeds that lead to seizures. Or even psychiatric disorders that sometimes go masked because these players are big, strong, intimidating, hulking figures who have superhuman powers and superhuman talent. You say, Well, how could a guy who looks like this be depressed? How could a guy who looks like this be suicidal? But with the attention that’s come from concussions, traumatic brain injury, the attention that’s come from players voicing their opinions and using their platform to talk about mental health and really feel unfiltered and unbothered by being vulnerable a little bit, saying these things that often don’t go in line with the macho nature of the sport. I think you’re seeing the NFL slowly walk into a better phase. A phase where they care about players. Would you let your kids play football? I have one boy and one girl. I would let my son Zayed play football if a few checkboxes were done. If the game became more safe in the sense of the strategy around the game was emphasized and the high velocity, impact collision hits were less celebrated. I’d let him play if the coaching was on fundamentals. The equipment needs to protect him and protect his brain for sure. I would probably delay allowing him to play. I played at six years old. I probably wouldn’t allow him to play until he gets to the 8th or 9th grade. Football has done a lot for me in a sense of earning intangible qualities and developing these traits that have helped me in my medical career: Discipline, focus, hard work, teamwork, communication, overcoming adversity. All these things I learned through years of playing football. That I think makes me a better researcher, a better scientist, a better clinician. We want to keep the sport around. It just has to be done in a much, much safer fashion.
| | ADS MASK UP, OR NOT — Political campaigns pack as many symbols as they can into 30-second TV ads to drive home candidates’ messages, from waving flags to smiling seniors to bustling small businesses. This year, Elena Schneider writes, there’s a new one on the list: masks. Masks are in heavy rotation in TV ads for both parties in suburbs around the country, according to a POLITICO review of more than 400 political ads that aired in September and were collected by Advertising Analytics. Ad-makers have done intensive research to figure out whether voters would recoil at reminders of the pandemic in TV ads or if they would warm to seeing masks as a safety precaution, according to interviews with more than a dozen media consultants. As a result, masks are much less prominent among Democrats and Republicans alike in rural, more GOP-leaning House districts. Some of the consultants noted that mask-wearing can just be a result of logistics like filming in a business or a public space where there’s a mask ordinance. But more often, candidates are looking to send a message by wearing one — or not.
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| | | Nightly asks you: Have you adopted a new pet during the pandemic? Send us a picture of your new furry, scaled or feathered friend to nightly@politico.com, and we’ll include select photos in our Friday edition.
| | CLEVELAND ROCKED — Interruptions. Insults. Chaos. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, White House reporter Gabby Orr breaks down the key moments from Tuesday night’s showdown between Trump and Biden — and what it all means for the final stretch of the campaign.
| | | | PRAGUE BUCKLES DOWN — The Czech government announced a state of emergency today to contain a second wave of Covid-19 infections, which is threatening hospital capacity and has seen the number of deaths from the illness soar, correspondent Siegfried Mortkowitz writes. Health Minister Roman Prymula told MPs that the country is now facing daily rates of infection that are “among the worst in the world” and represent a 20-fold increase over those registered in the spring. He also warned that hospital capacity in the country was being strained. “If we don’t do anything, we’ll get into a situation where all our beds are occupied by Covid patients,” he said. The state of emergency declaration, which will officially come into effect on Oct. 5 and last for 30 days, will be accompanied by a broad range of new restrictions. These include shutting down secondary schools in high-risk areas, such as the capital Prague, for two weeks; banning spectators from attending professional sports matches; and limiting the number of people at indoor events, such as weddings and church ceremonies.
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4,200 The number of New York children who lost a parent to Covid-19 between March and July, according to a United Hospital Fund report released today. The report also said 325,000 kids have been forced into poverty or near-poverty due to the pandemic. (h/t Shannon Young) |
| | | STATING THE OBVIOUS — Suddenly, the political spotlight is shining on an overlooked state-government job: secretary of state. It’s not a mystery why. These are the officials whom most states entrust to protect the vote in an apolitical way, cybersecurity reporter Eric Geller writes. During the pandemic, Americans are expressing unprecedented distrust in the voting process. That has led to scrutiny of the nation’s secretaries of state, who are responsible for overseeing elections and ensuring fair vote counting in all but 10 states. The job is on the ballot in six states this year, and those campaigns reflect larger anxieties around election integrity and voter access. Usually sleepy affairs, these races are turning hotly political. These people, virtually none of whom are widely known beyond their families and their states’ capitol buildings, will be centerstage in any contested election. Barring extreme delays, newly elected secretaries won’t play any role in overseeing their states’ other 2020 contests. But these officials will help decide how elections are run and how votes counted going forward. In a handful of states, the secretaries will play a role in the redistricting process for state and federal legislative seats. Interviews with nine candidates in the 2020 races — taking place in Missouri, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia — reveal intense clashes over how citizens should vote and how states should protect the process. West Virginia challenger Natalie Tennant accused Republican Secretary of State Mac Warner of making the state “the laughingstock of election security” for embracing internet voting. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft scoffed at his Democratic opponent Yinka Faleti’s support of a more targeted system for double-checking ballots, saying Faleti “doesn't seem very well informed.”
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