[Hour One]

 

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Brian: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. This morning, we're beginning our fall election series 30 Issues in 30 Days and we're beginning it as a rebroadcast of the two issues we tackled for an hour apiece last night on a national call-in special America, Are We Ready? In the hour coming up its America, Are We Ready To Vote In A Pandemic? And it will talk about how to cast a ballot to keep your body safe from the virus and keep your ballot safe from getting lost. Christina Greer, Fordham University Political Science Professor was my cohost. You'll hear great guests and you will hear callers from Maine to California, that's America, Are We Ready To Vote In A Pandemic? coming up after the latest news?

Korva: Live I'm from NPR News, I'm Korva Coleman. Late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is lying in repose at the US Supreme Court. Her casket has been taken to the court's portico outdoors, where the public will have two days to file past it. NPR's Windsor Johnston reports from the Supreme Court, where many people have been lined up.

Windsor: People stood in complete silence, except for a few who were crying. Others stood with their hands placed over their hearts as Ginsburg's flag-draped casket was carried up the steps of the Supreme Court. Dozens of her former law clerks dressed in black, lined the steps of the building and hundreds of people have formed a line around the court waiting to pay their final respects.

Korva: President Trump will pay his respects to Justice Ginsburg tomorrow. Two Republican senators who are committee chairman have released a report on Joe Biden's son, Hunter. They say Hunter Biden's relationship with a Ukrainian energy company was problematic, but NPR's Ryan Lucas reports, they did not show his actions affected us policy toward Ukraine.

Ryan: The 87-page report from Republican senators, Ron Johnson and Chuck Grassley looks at Hunter Biden's business dealings when his father, Joe Biden was serving as vice president. It delves into the younger Biden's position on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian gas company called Burisma. The GOP report cites two state department officials who raised concerns about Hunter Biden's work for the company saying it was "awkward" for US officials pushing anti-corruption efforts in the country. The Republican lawmakers report calls Hunter Biden's work for the Ukrainian firm "problematic", but it also concludes that it is not to what extent his role affected American policy towards Ukraine. Ryan Lucas in NPR News, Washington.

Korva: Large-scale testing begins today in the US on a fourth potential COVID-19 vaccine. NPR's Joe Palca says the study is expected to involve up to 60,000 volunteers worldwide.

Joe: The large study's to show whether the vaccine can prevent disease in people exposed to the Coronavirus. It's made by the vaccine division of Johnson & Johnson. Researchers have demonstrated that the vaccine prevents disease in monkeys. Small-scale studies show the vaccine is both safe to use in people and it induces the immune response that should protect people from disease. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has an advantage over others being tested in that it requires only one injection. Others require two shots based weeks apart. Initial results from the study could be available by the end of the year. Joe Palca NPR News.

Korva: The National Weather Service has issued flood warnings for the remnants of tropical storm, Beta. Warnings are posted from Eastern Texas up through Mississippi. Rain from the storm is falling as far north as Kentucky. The Weather Service says the storm is very slow-moving, that means it will rain for a much longer period of time on areas still recovering from other hurricanes. On Wall Street, stocks are lower. The Dow Jones Industrials are down 30 points. The NASDAQ is down nearly 78 points. This is NPR News.

David: This is WNYC in New York, I'm David Furst. Mayor De Blasio says more than 9,000 city workers will be furloughed for five days from October through next March. Its part of the city's cost-cutting measures to deal with the financial downturn, officials projected it will save $21 million. The mayor says conversations will continue with labor unions and he's hoping aid from the state comes through.

De Blasio: We need to keep finding savings to keep bridging us, to give us a chance to get to something better than layoffs. No one wants to see layoffs, but unfortunately, they're still on the table.

David: Earlier this month, De Blasio said 500 city hall staffers, including himself would be taking furloughs. New Jersey officials say suspected drug-related deaths are up this year. This past July saw a 12% increase compared to the previous year as WNYC's Karen Rouse reports. Health experts say the stress of the pandemic is a factor.

Karen: Katie Onitiri-Hageman is a licensed drug counselor in Mercer County. She says she saw a surge in people reaching out for help over the course of the pandemic as many found themselves cut off from their support communities.

Katie: There was times when they didn't have people in person and there was the shift to online. Sometimes in their retaining people probably really want to have that in-person connection because that's a community within itself.

Karen: Onitiri-Hageman noted that liquor stores were allowed to remain open during the economic shutdown, which may have contributed to people falling back into addictions.

David: 66 degrees now in New York City, sunshine all day today, a high around 80 degrees this afternoon. Tonight skies will remain a clear we'll have a low of 62 degrees and then tomorrow this sunny, clear warm weather continues, partly sunny, a high near 80 degrees. This is WNYC.

Brian: From WNYC in New York it's America, Are we ready? Good evening everyone. I'm Brian Lehrer from WNYC Radio. Welcome to our national call-in special. As we ask America, are we ready to vote in a pandemic?

Christina: I'm Christina Greer, Political Science Professor at Fordham University and the United States tonight is at an intersection of two important milestones. The very grim one that we officially hit the 200,000 mark today, 200,000 Americans who have died from the Coronavirus and the always hopeful milestone of the start of early voting. It is already underway in-person in some States and in some others, you might already have your mail-in ballot.

Brian: All right. In this year of so many safety concerns, what's the safest way to vote? What's the safest way for keeping your body safe from the virus? What's the safest way to make sure your vote actually gets counted? This hour we will try to answer both questions as we talk about the practical and the political sides and really ask America, are we ready to vote in a pandemic?

Christina: Brian, we've got two great guests to help us answer these questions. We'll introduce them in just a minute, but listeners, this is a national call-in and so you're invited to call-in and tell us, how are you getting ready to vote in a pandemic? Are you planning to mail in a ballot, drop one off in a dropbox, go for early voting in person or do it the old-fashioned way and vote on Election Day? Call us up at 844-745-TALK. What's the system in your state and how are you getting ready to vote in a pandemic? Maybe some of you listening right now have already voted since early voting in person or a mail has begun in some places. If so, how did it go? 844-745-8255, its 844-745-TALK.

Brian: I apologize. Yes, that is 844-745-TALK. If you're unsure or ambivalent or have your doubts about what's safe for your body or safe for your ballot, we also welcome your questions. We are here to help America be ready to vote in a pandemic. We're here to help you. Your voting questions are welcome here, 844-745-8255 at 844-745-TALK.

Christina: Now let's meet our guests who will be those helpers. Myrna Pérez, Director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Ari Berman, senior reporter at Mother Jones magazine and author of Give Us The Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Myrna and Ari, we're so happy you could join us. Welcome to America, Are We Ready To Vote In A Pandemic?

Myrna: Thank you for having us.

Ari: Thank you for having us.

Brian: Now first to set us right in the present of this first day of fall, who can already vote in the United States and who's already doing it? Myrna?

Myrna: A number of states are already sending out their ballot application or their mail ballots to folks. I think what's really important and what we're trying to tell people is to make sure that however way you vote, you vote as early as possible. If you decide that you're going to vote by mail, then get that ballot as early as you can, apply for it as early as you can send it back as early as you can, that way you have time to check if there's any troubleshooting or any problems that you may encounter. As soon as your early voting opportunities in your state get started, try and take advantage of them because you want to be able to be there and have the confidence and relief that you're not going to be there during a crush. I think one of the big things that folks need to remember when they're talking about everything that can go wrong, is that for the vast majority of Americans, Election Day is going to go smoothly. Now, that doesn't mean that there's not going to be hiccups, so that there's not going to be a problems. That certainly, doesn't mean that we need to enthusiast about those hiccups and those problems.

We need to try and fix them. We need to try and identify them. We need to try and troubleshoot them. I don't want any of these listeners to be deterred from voting because they've heard that there's going to be problems. We're resilient people, we care about our right to vote, and we're going to overcome a lot of the challenges that are facing us.

Christina: Ari, I want to bring you in given all the unique conditions this year, and that's the understatement of the century. Any early reports on how it's going and where that might send an early signal of what people need to be prepared for elsewhere?

Ari: It seems to be going relatively well, Christina, given everything that's going on with the pandemic. Just to give you some context, I saw a stat today that said that 64 million absentee ballots have been requested or sent to voters in 30 States so far. Ballots have gone out in a lot of places, over 265,000 Americans have already voted. Over 150,000 people have voted in North Carolina, a significant number of people have voted in Virginia, Wisconsin as well. We have the best data so far on North Carolina, where, as I said, over 150,000 people have voted by mail. By and large, it's gone pretty smoothly. There were some warning signs, at least initially. Something like 4% of mail ballots were rejected and there was a disparate impact in terms of whose ballots were rejected.

Black voters were more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected, even though they were sending in a much lower number of ballots. That was disturbing because that was in line with some of the stuff we saw during the primaries were ballots were rejected and there was also a disparate impact, but North Carolina also allows voters to cure their ballots. Meaning if there's a problem with the ballot, they can actually fix it. The rate of rejection in North Carolina I saw today is down to about 1%. The good news is that people are voting by mail in large numbers already and they seem to be understanding the process. One of my biggest concerns about this process is we're going to see a huge jump in vote by mail in a lot of States.

The question is do voters understand all the rules or will their ballots be thrown out because of minor technicalities? We saw over 500,000 mail ballots thrown out in the primaries largely for minor errors or because they arrived too late. The hope is that there's enough voter education that that number won't rise significantly in this general election.

Brian: Let's take our first call. Jess in Atlanta. You're on America, Are We Ready? Hi, Jess. Thanks so much for calling in.

Jess: Thank you. I just had to pull over that I wouldn't be on the road while we spoke.

Brian: That'll keep you safe-

Jess: How are you doing?

Brian: -from other kinds of accidents than the coronavirus. Doing great. How are you doing and how are you voting? Have you figured it out?

Jess: Yes. I'm going to vote early in-person.

Brian: Why'd you make that choice?

Jess: For me, I think that that it raises my spirits to actually go, see, and be there. I feel like if I'm distanced properly outside, I feel comfortable doing that. I definitely want to vote early because I just need to get it done. I think it's urgent right now.

Brian: Jess, thank you much. Let's go from Atlanta to Fort Worth. Richard in Fort Worth. You're on America, Are We Ready? Hey there, Richard.

Richard: Hi. I'm going to go actually, physically go vote. I haven't voted since like 1976.

Brian: Wait, did you say you haven't voted since 1976? You've taken the last like 50 years off?

Richard: I want to go actually do the physical voting, yes.

Brian: Why'd you make that choice?

Richard: I just can't take this ignoble Trump guy anymore.

Brian: Richard, thank you very much. Let's do one more in this set. Tony in Berkeley, California. You're on America, Are We Ready? Thank you for calling in. How are you going to vote this year?

Tony: I'm going to go in-person. I'm going to vote in-person probably early. I like the old fashioned way. Post office, I just don't trust the mail. You have to remember the post office has been on the decline since, you know what, '03, '04 ever since the age of the internet. The internet has taken over, people are not going to pay their bills by the US mail anymore. They're definitely understaffed. They don't have enough manpower. I don't trust it. What if the mail gets lost? There's been different examples or I've seen some news clips across the country where people did some mock voting things with ballots and they never showed up or, like you said, 1% or up to 3% haven't shown up. I think I'm just going to do it the old fashioned way. That's all I'm going to go in and do it.

Brian: And get it done. Tony, thank you very much. Everybody else, hang on. We're going to get to lot more calls this hour. Myrna Pérez, let me ask you since our first informal unofficial thoroughly unscientific sample here was all of people who really want to vote in-person, even though our agents just told us 64 million absentee ballots have been requested. That's so many orders of magnitude more than ever before. How risky from a coronavirus standpoint is voting in-person? Is there any good viral spread data from the primary season or anything?

Myrna: The first thing that I want to say is it makes my heart sing to hear so many people attached to their right to vote and so many people talking about how it inspires them and how they're going to make sure that they do it and that they persist in the face of the misinformation and the disinformation and the downerness that we keep hearing about our elections. I think we recently issued a publication with the Infectious Disease Society of America. These are people who are in the business of protecting public health against infectious diseases. What we discovered in our research was that in-person voting can be done safely. It means taking precautions, very sensible precautions that are not going to surprise anybody, have people wear PPE, make sure poll workers are not sick, make sure you're appropriately distancing people, look at the way it's design and flow with setups so people don't have to be right next to each other when they're leaving or coming back in.

If we put our heads together, are creative, and have the right resources, we can conduct in-person polling in a way that is consistent with good public health practices. Having said that, it would be beneficial for as many people as possible to vote by mail because that means that there's going to be less congestion and those that are at greater risk who do need to vote in-person will just have fewer people around them. Again, the number one thing to remember is no matter how you're going to vote, whether that be in-person or whether that be via the mail, you vote as early as possible, and that you're smart and sensible about what your risk profile is and what your risk tolerance is. Then to remember the others in the community who may not have the health, or flexibility, or situational needs that they give them a choice and for you to be as accommodating of those folks as possible.

Elections are a time when we all come together, where it doesn't matter if you are rich or poor, or Black or white, or educated or not. When you step into the ballot box, it's supposed to matter the same. As such, we need to look out for each other and think about each other when we're making our own decision.

Brian: Absolutely. Were up on our first break. When we come back, we'll hear some clips including one of Trump, one of Biden on all this, and we will take many more of your phone calls on how you plan to vote in a pandemic. This is America, Are We Ready To Vote In A Pandemic? We'll continue in a minute.

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Brian: This is America, Are We Ready To Vote In A Pandemic? I'm Brian Lehrer from WNYC Radio. We have Fordham University Political Science Professor Christina Greer and our guests Myrna Pérez, Director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Ari Berman, senior reporter at Mother Jones Magazine and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Our phones remain open for you to ask your voting questions and to tell your fellow listeners around the country, how you plan to vote in the pandemic to keep your body safe from the virus and to keep your ballot safe from getting lost in the mail or anything else that might happen to it. You are invited at 844-745-TALK that's 844-745-8255 or 844-745-TALK.

Christina: Ari, I want to pick up on something that Myrna said right before the break. I count at least four ways that folks can vote depending on their state. They can vote by mail. They can drop off an absentee ballot at a dropbox. They can vote early in-person, or they can vote in-person on election day. Do most people have those choices?

Ari: Yes, that's a good point, Christina. The first thing to remember is in 44 States, you can vote by mail for any reason. That means it's easy to vote by mail in nearly every state in the country. We heard one of the callers raise a concern about the post office. That's obviously what we are hearing a lot, but the post office says they have the capacity to handle all the mail ballots in the country. They just want people to vote early if they do vote by mail. To request their mail ballot at least two weeks before the election and to return at least a week before the election, not to put pressure on the post office and not to put too much pressure on election officials, try to flatten the absentee ballot curve. People who vote by mail can also drop their ballots off. That's absolutely the case in a bunch of States that is being litigated right now.

The number of dropboxes where there'll be is somewhat influx. For example, there is a directive in Ohio from the Secretary of State that there should only be one dropbox per County, which is pretty insane given that some counties in Ohio have a lot of people and are very big. A federal court struck that down, but the Secretary of State is appealing. Some of this is in flux, but a lot of States like in Colorado, they will be hundreds and hundreds of dropboxes. Then also in-person, early voting is an option in most States. 40 States have early voting, meaning that in most states you can vote early. In some states it's up to 45 days long, so people in Virginia, voting this weekend. In-person early voting begins in Michigan this week. It began in Vermont this week. It's going to pick up in a bunch of other States.

What we don't want people to do is show up at the polls on Election Day if they have an option to vote early or to mail in their ballot the last minute if they can get it in early because that really increases the risk of voter disenfranchisement. If we're going to try to solve the problems that we're facing because of the pandemic at the polls or through the mail, the easiest way to do it is ahead of time. Luckily, people have that option in nearly every state.

Brian: You mentioned Ohio. Let's go next to Aday, calling from Cleveland. Aday, you're on America, Are We Ready? Hi there.

Aday: Oh my goodness. Hello? How are you?

Brian: I'm okay. How are you voting?

Aday: Wonderful. Well, I am going to do the regular old normal way. Go on the day and vote just like my ancestors have done many years prior.

Brian: Thank you very much. Maybe we have a correlation, if not causation, people who call public radio talk shows vote in-person. Ben in Auburn, Alabama, you're on America, Are We Ready? Hi Ben.

Ben: Yes, sir. How are you doing good?

Brian: Good. How are you doing?

Ben: I'm doing pretty good.

Brian: What do you think about this election, at least how to cast a ballot in it?

Ben: Well, I'm really happy about it because I went on and plus for myself and my wife, we voted last week together.

Brian: Already voted.

Ben: It was organized. They really were comprehensive and showing us what to do. It was safe and I'm glad that's over.

Brian: Ben, thank you very much. How reliable at this point, Myrna, do you consider the post office? We know that they were removing mailboxes and sorting machines in various places, but Trump's Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said this in congressional testimony a few weeks ago.

Louis: I want to begin by assuring this committee and the American public that the Postal Service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's ballots securely and on time. This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and election day. To be clear, we will do everything we can to handle and deliver election mail in a manner consistent with the proven processes and procedures that we have relied upon for years. Nevertheless, I encourage all Americans who choose to vote by mail to request their ballots early and to vote early as common sense, best practice.

Brian: Louis DeJoy, but not everyone's buying his confidence. Today on MSNBC, the Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro was a guest with Ayman Mohyeldin and he had some-- well, let's say some doubt. Let's listen.

Josh: Louis DeJoy and the leadership at the United States Postal Service made concrete and illegal changes back in July that had the effect of slowing down the mail. While I know he testified even before Congress and said he wouldn't make any other changes going forward, the reality is the damage is already done. We can prove it. The effect of that damage is that it has slowed down the mail and made it more of a process for voters than it needs to be.

Brian: Are you confident, Myrna Perez, with those 64 million absentee ballots out? Regardless of what the people calling into the show are saying so far, we know so many people are voting absentee or mail-in, and are you confident, or do you have advice for them?

Myrna: My job is to be a worrywart and I don't think the question is much as confidence as it is prepared. The post office is important to Americans for a whole bunch of reasons. In addition to just voting people, get their prescriptions, people get beloved connections to other people. People are making sure that they get paychecks and the like in the mail. I think we need a strong and robust post office, but I do think the advice that has been consistent, irrespective of who is saying it, is that you want to vote early if you're going to be voting by mail. Also, if you're going to be voting in-person because you want to be able to account for slowdowns and glitches. Many States, not all of them, but many States have tracking systems whereby you can actually see where your ballot is in the pipeline, and you can always call your election office to make sure that it has been received and that it's in the queue for being processed.

I think if voters vote early, including by mail, they're going to be in a good position to have a ballot that counts and they can also do the followup to make sure that they weren't subject to any challenges and correct for it if there were. I think voters should feel prepared. Voters should feel resilient and voters should be comforted by the fact that for the vast majority of Americans elections are going to run smoothly, but it makes sense to make sure that you take all the steps you can to encourage of the likelihood that you will be among those voters that don't have any challenges. That means voting early,

Christina: Brian, let's hear from Meredith from Scarborough, Maine next.

Brian: Great. Meredith, you're on America, Are We Ready?

Meredith: Good evening. Thank you for taking my call. I wanted to answer the question for actually myself, my husband, and my mother. I vote in Colorado and for years all of our votes are by mail. There's no problem. I go online and I'm able to track that they received my ballot. I expect to receive that sometime in October. My husband votes in Virginia, and he just voted in early voting on the first day, which was last Friday. There were quite a number of people in line, but it was all clean and everybody was spaced apart and he had no questions about who he was going to vote for us. He wanted to go ahead and get it done. The question we have for my mother who votes in Maine is we've ordered her absentee ballot, which is how she typically votes.

The only thing we may do this year is possibly still take it in in-person because of the concern that since she's 87 and her signature is not always consistent, I'm concerned that they would try to invalidate her vote.

Brian: That's such a great question. I think it applies to many, many people. Someone was asking me a similar question personally just the other day. Ari Berman, can you help Meredith and anyone else who may for whatever reason have a shaky handwriting at this point in their life or any other reason to believe that their absentee ballot might incorrectly be looked on as not their own?

Ari: Yes, this is a good point, and Myrna probably knows more about this than I do, so I'm going to defer to her in a second. It is true that one of the reasons why ballots are thrown out is because of a "mismatched signature". Sometimes this is done by election officials who aren't really experts in signatures. One thing that some states have done, like in Pennsylvania, there was a directive from the Secretary of State that said that ballots should not be thrown out solely for mismatched signatures, or in other states, voters should be given a notification if they have a "mismatched signature", because this is something that could trip up a number of voters without really doing anything wrong. I'm not sure about what the specific law in Maine is. I don't know, Myrna, do you know, or maybe you have more context on this?

Myrna: Well, the one thing that I would say, Ari, and I think this is a worry of our own making. Organizations like the Brennan Center, great journalists like Ari, did a really good job highlighting the problem, and it is a very real concern in some states, that the really rigid and anti-voter signature matching is responsible for kicking out a lot of voters. I would note that those problems that people point to and those states that people point to are a handful, and somehow we tended to nationalize this concern when it was the same handful of states that were causing most of the problems and getting most of the attention. I think if anybody has a concern before you do something heroic, I would call your election office, irrespective of what state you're in, ask them what the procedures are, ask them what you can do, and they'll walk you through it.

I think we have enough time now that we can troubleshoot most of the issues. I'm a civil rights lawyer, so that means I engage in the kind of thinking that if we work long enough and hard enough, we will be able to bend the moral arc of the universe closer to justice. I think we can all feel very, very good about the progress that this country has made in the mere months since the coronavirus hit us so hard. So many states have changed their policies in a pro-voter way, and I think we're only going to benefit from people realizing that our democracy works best when all of us are participating. Rather than taking something that you've heard happens in a state like, let's say Georgia, which was once very notorious for having a really stringent matching requirement for signatures, find out what your own state policy is, and call ahead, and ask your election office, "What can I do to make sure that this doesn't happen to me?" Hopefully, they'll reassure you.

We cannot nationalize the exceptions to the rules, and I do think that we've done that a bit by trying to raise the concern. We've over-scared voters who really don't need to be as worried about it as they would if they lived in another state.

Christina: Thanks, Myrna. Brian, let's go to Spencer from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, please.

Brian: Hi, Spencer. You're on America, Are We Ready?

Spencer: Yes. How are you?

Brian: Okay. I see you've hit a snag with a mail-in ballot.

Spencer: Yes. I've opted to mail-in ballots this election because with regards to COVID-19 both my wife and daughter are in the at-risk category, so a mail-in ballot was available to anyone in the state of New Jersey, Union County has a dropbox, easy enough to take care of, or so I thought. The one thing I didn't take into account for was my being my own worst enemy multiple columns on the ballot. My wife and I discussed options, she said, "Vote every one in one particular column except for this row which you should vote in a different column because I know this particular candidate and I can vouch for them." I went ahead and put in that specific candidate in that specific column first and then proceeded to fill in the other column as discussed.

Got lackadaisical and distracted and then filled the same row in that column so that for one particular entry I voted twice. That then basically rendered my entire ballot null and void and had to request another one from the county administrative assistant for voting, and I'm still waiting for that to show up.

Brian: Myrna and Ari, who wants it? What can Spencer in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey do, and is this a problem that other people are having?

Myrna: I'm a New Jersey voter myself, I vote in Jersey City, and I will say that-

Brian: You've come to the right place, Spencer.

Myrna: -what you did was what we sometimes call an overvote, which means you voted for more candidates than you're supposed to in the same contest. I think there are a couple of things. One, you did exactly what you were supposed to do, you called. You're going to get another ballot, it's going to come to you, you're going to return it in time. If you get nervous about it, you'll go to the in-person option that you have. I also think that we should do a better job of designing our ballots so that it's harder for people to make mistakes.

One of the things that Ari mentioned earlier was the fact that we need voter education because people are going to be doing it in a new way for the vast majority or a lot of people are going to be voting in a new way.

Sometimes people don't know that they have certain technical requirements. For example, in Pennsylvania, you have to use a particular envelope that we call the privacy sleeve.

The nuts and bolts of a state's mail balloting processes will have some peculiarities, but you did exactly what you were supposed to do, you recognized the problem, you called it, you're getting a replacement, and hopefully, it'll work out for you. If you don't get your ballot in a couple of days, go back.

Brian: Good modeling for other people who may find themselves in that position. Spencer, good service calling in. Let me sneak in Nicole in Dallas before we have to go to a break because I think Nicole has a little quick advice based on her experience. Right, Nicole? Hi, there.

Nicole: Hi. Yes, I served as an election clerk for many years, and I'm sure that my observations are relevant in any jurisdiction. First of all, if you plan to vote early, I would not vote on the first day or the last day, you want to shoot for the middle. Make sure your registration is current. If you have moved even within your jurisdiction, you want to make sure your registration is updated by next week. If you are voting on Election Day, don't go first thing in the morning, don't go at lunchtime, don't go at the very end of the day. You want to allow enough time to vote because-

Brian: I have to leave it there.

Nicole: -per election cycle, you tend to have long ballots. With constitutional--

Brian: Good advice. We're up against a break, so I have to jump in. This is America, Are We Ready To Vote In A Pandemic? We'll continue in a minute.

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Brian: This is America, Are We Ready To Vote In A Pandemic? I'm Brian Lehrer from WNYC Radio with Fordham University Political Science Professor, Christina Greer, and our guests Myrna Pérez, Director of the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Ari Berman, Senior Reporter at Mother Jones and author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.

Christina: Myrna mentioned that we were possibly over-scaring voters. Ari, I wanted to ask you just a question about voter intimidation and suppression tactics that we've seen thus far. We've already heard about long lines in Virginia and some intimidating tactics by, I believe, private sector people. Is there anything like that going on that you know of and what are some of the suppression tactics that you're seeing across some of the swing states especially thus far?

Ari: We haven't seen much of that so far in the early days of people voting, but I am concerned about that for a few different reasons. The president said a few months back that he wanted to have sheriffs and other police at the polls. That is illegal and they are unable to do that. It's also true that for over 30 years, there was a consent decree preventing the Republican Party from doing what was called ballot security operations. This actually originated in New Jersey where the Republican Party tried to remove voters from the voting roles in predominantly minority communities in cities like Trenton and Newark. Then, they stationed off-duty cops there, and they carried weapons, and they wore these armbands that said National Ballot Security Task Force. This led to the Republican Party being hit with a consent decree that said you can't do this kind of stuff anymore, and that court decree recently expired so the Republican Party can now do this poll watching, they were not able to do in the past. There hasn't really been much evidence beyond what we saw in Virginia, that they're going to do this on a broad scale, but the Republican Party said they were going to try to recruit 50,000 poll watchers. I'm not sure they're going to get there, it would be illegal for them to try to intimidate voters at the polls to try to use law enforcement to do that, but it's one of many concerns we have right now.

Then of course, there are just the traditional concerns about restricting voter access, things like voter ID laws or things like not allowing people to register to vote online, or things like closing polling places, all of this stuff has been magnified in the pandemic because people are already confused about voting, and then you add restrictive laws on top of this, and it becomes more difficult to vote. That said, Myrna made a good point, which is that courts in a lot of states are actually expanding access to vote. For example, they're giving people more time to cast a ballot, there have been court decisions in Georgia and Wisconsin, in Pennsylvania and Michigan and other states, for example, saying that if your ballot is postmarked by Election Day, or postmarked the day before the election, it doesn't have to arrive by Election Day, it can arrive a few days later, or maybe even a week or two later.

People are worried about mail delays, that kind of thing will go a long way towards ensuring the ballots aren't thrown out if they're delayed a little bit as long as you mailed up on time. I think the courts are trying to make voting easier. The worry, of course, is that some of the Trump appointees are very conservative and of course, if we get a six supreme court justices on the Supreme Court, and they hear some sort of voting dispute, either before the election or after, that could be a very volatile situation.

Brian: Janet in New Rhodes, Louisiana, you're on America, Are We Ready? Hi, Janet, thank you so much for calling in.

Janet: Hi, I plan on voting absentee because Louisiana is the only state in the nation that has all electronic touchscreen voting with no paper trail. Essentially, there is no way for me to actually know if my vote has been counted. Louisiana is also one of the states that has one of the most restrictive qualifications for absentee voting. Now I'm able to vote absentee because I'm over 65, but for other people, people are simply concerned about exposure to COVID, that's not a good enough reason to receive an absentee ballot in Louisiana. I have called our Secretary of State's office to ensure that the paper ballot that I fill out is fed into a physical machine that reads the ballot and then presents the vote. Hopefully, I will actually know if my ballot is counted, although, at this point, Louisiana has no program for me to be able to log in and see if in fact my paper ballot it has been counted.

Brian: You plan to vote by mail-in ballot because you don't trust the in-person ballot not to be manipulated because there's no backup paper trail to the computer vote, am I hearing that right?

Janet: That is correct. I actually planned it drop it off at the Registrar of Voters, which I can do. Louisiana, I believe our ballots have to be requested by October the 13th, and I have an option to drop it off, so rather than put it in the mail, I plan to drop it into the ballot boxes-

Brian: That's a dropbox.

Janet: -but that's correct. I have-

Brian: That's still a paper ballot. Janet, I'm going to leave it there for time but thank you very, very much and to that point. Ari Berman, President Trump tries to play up the risk of voter fraud way beyond what history would suggest the risk is, but you hear Janet's suspicion. Are you at all concerned about voter fraud or hacking by Russia or China or manipulation by local election officials who may have an interest which is I think what Janet was implying or anything?

Ari: I'm not really concerned about voter fraud because voter fraud is a very small problem in American elections, including a vote by mail fraud. The Heritage Foundation, which is very conservative and a supporter of President Trump, they found only 143 criminal convictions for mail ballot fraud over the past 20 years, which equals out to 0.0006% of total votes cast. There has been a ton of disinformation from the president, from the attorney general about foreign countries trying to manipulate mail-in ballots that would be very, very difficult, if not impossible for them to do. Pretty much all of the concerns raised about mail ballot fraud have been completely overstated. I'm much more worried about voters being disenfranchised because they don't understand the rules of mail voting than I am about widespread or major mail ballot fraud.

There is concern in states that don't have paper backups about electronic voting machines, I was just looking online and Louisiana evidently was supposed to get new machines that would have a paper backup, but I don't know if they've actually gotten those machines in ready for 2020. I think, in this day and age, it just makes sense for everyone to have the assurance that their vote is counted, whether it's by mail, or by person, have the assurance that if they vote by mail, they'll know it's counted and have the insurance, that if they vote in person, there'll be a record of their vote counting. It makes sense that voters would want that but we haven't seen evidence of these kind of things being manipulated.

Christina: Myrna, we have people who are prepared to vote on Election Day, we have people who are prepared to vote early, what should our listeners be prepared to expect on election night and likely afterwards for getting a full count, especially in closed states, some of the states that Ari's mentioned previously.

Myrna: Well, you guys are doing a great service public education to your voters and Ari needs to hear this. To my good friend Ari, we need to be prepared for the fact that we are not likely to know who won on election night and I think some of the demand for that comes from journalists. There are some very pro voter reasons why we may not find out who won on election night. If we want to give voters until the very last possible moment to return their mail ballot, that means they're not all going to be in on election night. If we want to give voters the opportunity to fix any technical defects like the concern over the signature that the voter from Maine had, we're not going to find out on election night because they need time to find out that there was a problem and time to go in and fix it.

If we are going to conduct the kinds of audits for transparency to make sure that foreign cybercriminals didn't attack our systems like the last voter just mentioned, then we're going to need some time. I think one big thing that all listeners can do here is be ready to wait, and think about elections more like election week, rather than an election night. You don't vote just on one day, we have early voting and so we're not going to get the results in just one night, especially when we expect a lot more people voting by mail. My hope is that folks are ready to wait a bit and ready to see how it all unfolds and that they do their part in making sure that they and their family and their friends and neighbors are able to go to the polls.

Christina: Indeed, let's hear from Angela in Atlanta. Angela, you're on the line.

Angela: Hi, how are you?

Christina: Good thank you. Welcome.

Angela: Good. Okay. I'm excited all the way.

Christina: How do you plan on voting?

Angela: My plan is the same way it was for the primary. By the time the early voting started, I hadn't received my mail-in ballot. I went in second day, I tried to go not first day, but the second day first thing in the morning, first person in line and tried to take a snack. Whatever time of day it is, take your food, something breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Drape down like I'm a desert dweller. I put on the glasses, the gloves, the mask, anything I need to protect myself because I do have comorbidities and I just don't trust the Secretary of State program. Let's see what else. I try to make sure that all my adult children, whether they live in the house or not understand what the drill is and adhere to it. Christina, you have a very nice voice on radio.

Christina: Thank you so much and good luck voting in the general election.

Brian: We all agree about her voice. Dana and White Marsh, Pennsylvania, you're on America, Are We Ready? Hi, Dana.

Dana: Hi, I wanted to thank you for taking my call, but also I wanted to address I think it's wonderful that Trevor Noah and others are calling for folks to work the polls on Election Day because there's a shortage. I don't know exactly what this would look like, but just Pennsylvania is of course a very important state coming up. In my experience, I have actually worked for local polls in elections before and there's so much cronyism amongst the poll workers that exists. They tend to belittle in new folks and I know that one of your speakers said that election fraud is not a concern, but just folks being left out of that process when they do want to volunteer and show up at the polls, I just wish that there was a-- kind of rhetorical in a way, but I wish there was a better way to get folks to work at the polls without them feeling shut out because there is such a tendency for folks to go and have done this work for the last 20 or 30 years and all know each other. Thank you.

Myrna: Well, I think this is your year because a lot of the folks that have been doing it for 20 years are not signing up this year, because they have health risks. This is an opportunity for folks who have wanted to perform this community service to have an opportunity to do it, we're going to have a lot of brand new poll workers. Now, it is true that our election workers aren't really used to doing the kind of intake to be able to manage the influx of volunteers. There may be some bumps in that one way but I think we can expect a lot of first-time poll workers this election. I want to thank you for your past service and I hope you're not deterred and continue to do that service again in the future.

Brian: [crosstalk] We've heard people who are voting in person because they don't trust the mailing system. We've heard people who are voting by mail because they don't trust the in-person system. Let me go to what in politics, they might call the nuclear option. There was this recent provocative moment from a Trump rally, this is the one in North Carolina, where he suggested that supporters vote by mail and then to make sure they get counted, show up on Election Day too, listen

Trump: They'll go out and they'll vote and they're going to have to go and check their vote by going to the polls and voting that way because if it tabulates, then they won't be able to do that. Let them send it in and let them go vote and if their systems as good as they say it is then obviously they won't be able to vote. If it isn't tabulated, they'll be able to vote, that's the way it is and that's what they should do.

Brian: That's illegal, as I understand it, to be perfectly clear about that, but Ari Berman, does he have a certain point that people of any party should consider? Like if you voted by mail and the system works, they will see that you voted, when you show up on Election Day, and you'll be turned away, you won't actually vote twice? Maybe you'll be arrested too, I don't know but if your mail-in ballot was not registered as received for any reason, and we've already had calls tonight from people to whom that's happening, then you'll get to vote in a way that will be registered. Is there any logic to it?

Ari: I'm afraid there isn't Brian, because in North Carolina, you can track your absentee ballot online, just like you can in many other states. People don't need to show up at the polls to inquire about what's happened with their mail ballot. They can actually do it at home and this could be a really disastrous situation because electron officials are already-- Sorry Brian, I need some water. Myrna, could you finish it?

Brian: That's okay. Myrna, you could even pick up that answer because you are on the same page.

Myrna: Yes, maybe I'll jump in here. Look, I want to be very clear that gamesmanship and overtaxing poll workers, and election administrators is something that people should just not be doing right now, but many, many states contemplate that voters are going to change their mind and it is in fact true that states have mechanisms to make sure that people don't cast a ballot. I think there's a big difference between a voter who gets a ballot at the end or forgets about the deadline and is worried that it's not going to arrive in time and then decides to go in person versus someone who's trying to test the system to prove a point. I don't want voters to be scared, I think Ari is exactly right, there are better ways than casting a ballot and going in person, but if you have a legitimate concern that your mail ballot is not going to arrive in time, check your state, but most states account for voters to be able to change their mind, but that's really, really different than purposely trying to overtax election administrators because you want a political point to prove.

Ari: Sure. [crosstalk]

Brian: We've only got about a minute left and first of all, I want to thank our guests, for providing so much great information to people and our callers from around the country for providing so much great information to people. Christina Greer, for you as a political science professor, do you have any closing thoughts for this hour? We've heard so much and there's still so many ambiguities.

Christina: I just want to thank Myrna and Ari for providing some clarification and remind our listeners that depending on their state we have several weeks where they can make sure they're registered and they can also think about if they want to vote in person on election day or vote early, vote by mail, or vote using a dropbox. Also, let's prepare ourselves where hopefully we'll know something on November 3, but as Myrna has braced us for this, we should be prepared that this might be much longer conversation possibly lasting a week or more because so many people want to exercise their right to vote for this important election. It's not just about us going out to vote, we need to make sure that our family members and community members are also prepared with the voting plan as well.

Brian: Well, we are out of time for this hour of your plans and stories and answers to the question America, Are We Ready to Vote in a Pandemic? Myrna and Ari, thank you one more time. This hour was produced by Megan Ryan, Lisa Allison, and Zach Gottehrer-Cohen. That's Jason Isaac at the audio controls. With Fordham University Political Science Professor Christina Greer, I'm Brian Lehrer.

 

[Hour Two]

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Brian Lehrer: From WNYC in New York, it's America: Are We Ready? Good evening, everyone. I'm Brian Lehrer from WNYC Radio. It's a national calling to connect with your neighbors and people from around the country this hour on the question, is there a liberal and a conservative way to fight a pandemic?

Christina Greer: I'm Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham University. The United States today officially hit the grim milestone of 200,000 [inaudible 00:00:59] virus. The pandemic is not over. In fact, the second wave of lockdowns is now underway in countries rooted, faded, and came back as they reopened, including the UK, Spain, Israel, and India, all to different degrees.

Brian: The question for Americans now is, who would be the better president for keeping us safe from the virus and from the economic, social, and educational devastation that shutdowns can bring? What should the balance be and who is better to strike it, Joe Biden or Donald Trump? Also, who'll get vaccine development right and who'll develop the rapid and at-home tests that might free us to return to normal even faster than a vaccine?

Christina: We will have three guests this hour. One more associated with conservative institutions, then one more associated with liberal ones, and then a journalist to tie it all together. With us first is Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity in Austin, Texas and policy editor for Forbes magazine. He was also a healthcare policy adviser to Mitt Romney's 2012 Republican presidential campaign. Avik, thanks for joining us and welcome to America: Are We Ready?

Avik Roy: Hey, it's a pleasure to be with you. How are you?

Christina: Great. Thank you, Avik. Let's jump right in. Is there a liberal or conservative way to fight this pandemic?

Avik: Well, I was really a bit amused, I'd say, listening to the way you laid out the segment. Because what's interesting to me and what I observe is that the conservatives from a dictionary definition standpoint, the people who are averse to risk, the people who are cautious, the people who are perhaps more dogmatic and unwilling to think about contrarian points of view, those are the people who, in general, are advocating a very restrictive approach to COVID-19, where we locked down the economy and we basically think about avoiding the risk of the virus at the expense of all other things, putting that as the highest priority.

The liberals, the small-L liberals, again, from the dictionary definition point of view, are the ones who are open to different points of view competing interpretations of the evidence that we find, people who are much more oriented towards balancing the trade-offs between restrictions, closures of schools, restrictions of businesses, along with the risks of the virus.

Brian: Avik, when you say "balancing the trade-offs," does that mean accepting a certain number of additional deaths for a certain number of additional or let's say less economic pain?

Avik: Well, Brian, I think that your premise is false because you're assuming that there's no cost to lives from massive economic restrictions and the closure of schools. In fact, there's a considerable amount of academic research that shows that prolonged economic shutdowns do decrease life expectancy, do increase deaths of various types. Deaths from mental health challenges, deaths of despair, deaths from not being able to seek health care of a non-COVID nature. They're all sorts of elements of health and health care that are damaged by lockdowns, and that has to be taken into account along with the economic and equality costs during the closure of schools.

Brian: I completely agree. I think that was the framing. Where's the balance in these complex choices? We know now that as of today, officially 200,000 Americans have died from the virus. Would you argue that anything proportional to that has taken place in terms of American deaths from the degree of lockdown that we've had or could have?

Avik: Well, this is a really important question, right? If we look around, if we look at New York City where you are, Brian, there was a lockdown, right? Schools are still closed and New York City in particular has that higher proportion of deaths per capita than any other part of the country. California has not had the same problems that New York has had.

If you compare, say, California and Texas, which have had pretty similar courses in terms of deaths, mortality, hospitalizations, cases, California has chosen a more aggressive or restrictive approach to lockdowns. Texas has been a bit more pragmatic. The results have been pretty similar, right? It's not clear. There's this dogma out there that lockdown save lives, at least in certain quarters. If you actually look at the evidence of how lockdowns are performed, we don't actually see that correlation.

Brian: Have lockdowns cost lives? Isn't the New York experience that it came in from Europe before anybody realized that was happening. It spread like wildfire, and then New York locked down pretty aggressively and it's gotten its positivity rate below 1% while California loosened up pretty quickly, Texas loosened up pretty quickly, and they've got much higher rates of transmission right now than New York.

Avik: I would describe it a little differently, Brian. By the time New York locked down, it was too late. The virus was already affecting roughly 20% of Manhattan. By the time the economic restrictions were in place, the virus had already spread throughout the city. It's not at all clear that the lockdowns actually did anything, but it's quite possible. I would argue it's probable that the reason why New York is seeing lower positivity rates now is because the people who were most susceptible to the virus got it very early on.

In the case of California, California did do a modest reopening. They're not locked down to the degree they were six months ago or, I should say, let's call it five months ago. They were much more restrictive than Texas. Again, at the time, you'll recall that when Texas and Florida and states like that did start to reopen in the May, June time frame, there were a lot of predictions that a million people would die in places like Texas and Florida and that hasn't happened.

In fact, as I said, as you know, the deaths in New York and Florida have been much-- excuse me, in Texas and Florida have been much, much lower than those dire predictions and they've been pretty similar to the performance of California. If you look at California, Texas, and Florida, three states that have had pretty similar trajectories but very different policy responses, we're not seeing a lot of difference in the way the pandemic has played out in those three states.

Christina: Avik, I want to ask you about some of these trade-offs in your point of view between virus deaths and serious illnesses, because we know that the virus is affecting Black and Latinx communities in disproportionate rates. We know that the virus is affecting Black and Latinx children at disproportionate rates. How are you viewing this trade-off between deaths, serious illnesses, which are totally different category, and some of these economic and social and educational costs of the shutdown? If we're already in one phase and we could possibly look to other nations to see what's coming down the pike, what are you proposing then for Americans to do?

Avik: There's a couple of important things to understand as we think about racial and ethnic differences in the way COVID has traveled through our society. I actually testified before Congress about a half dozen times this summer on this topic. I spent a lot of time with this data. One thing that's really important to be aware of is that part of that disproportionality is due to the fact that COVID has disproportionately affected urban areas and the parts of the country that are more racially and ethnically diverse, right?

If the disease is more prevalent in more diverse parts of the country, that alone explains part of the disparity in terms of racial impacts. What we do see in particular is the trend that's actually the most displayed, the biggest single disparity of COVID is disparity of medically-vulnerable elderly individuals. People who live in nursing homes, who live in assisted-living facilities across the United States, about 0.6% of the US population lives in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities and long-term care facilities.

These are seniors who are disabled or have other challenges with activities of daily living, taking a shower, having dinner, getting their clothes on in the morning. Those individuals have been ravaged by COVID. By the way, disproportionately, the people who live in nursing homes are people who are on Medicaid, people who are low income disproportionately, minority, non-white, right? Where have we seen a lot of the problems, particularly early on with nursing homes? It was in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, states where you have a high minority population in these medically-vulnerable communities.

Brian: We're going to run out of time for this segment in about two minutes. I want to get one other question in here with a clip. What do you think that global experience is teaching us about the ideal pace of reopening? They're having new clusters and newly re-imposed restrictions in the UK and elsewhere. Here's British Prime Minister Boris Johnson today.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson: All pubs, bars, and restaurants must operate a table-service only, Mr. Speaker, except for takeaways. Together with all hospitality venues, they must close at 10:00 PM. To help the police enforce this rule, I'm afraid that means, alas, closing and not just calling for last orders because simplicity is paramount. The same would apply to takeaways, though deliveries can continue thereafter. I'm sorry that this will affect many businesses that are just getting back on their feet, but we must act to stop the virus from being transmitted in bars and restaurants.

Brian: Avik, I apologize. You're going to have to give us a 30-second answer. What we're seeing in the UK-

Avik: I'll make it very quick.

Brian: - we're seeing something even worse than Israel and it's happening in Madrid and elsewhere too.

Avik: The overwhelming experience in Europe is that reopening schools works because kids are at very low risk of morbidity and mortality of serious illness or death. They also appear to transmit the virus to adults at extremely low rates.

Brian: Why is it spreading then?

Avik: It's not spreading because of younger children. The cases that we're seeing, there's been a rise in cases, but there hasn't been a corresponding rise in deaths because, again, the virus hit the most susceptible populations early on. We have to do more to protect nursing homes and vulnerable seniors and we have to do more to reopen schools and society for young children.

Brian: Avik Roy is president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity in Austin, Texas and policy editor for Forbes magazine. Thank you so much for joining us, Avik.

Avik: Brian, good to be with you.

Brian: Is there a liberal or conservative way to fight a pandemic? We'll get a different point of view right after this.

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Brian: This is America: Are We Ready? Is there a liberal or conservative way to fight a pandemic? I'm Brian Lehrer from WNYC Radio with Fordham University Political Science Professor Christina Greer. Joining us now is Dr. Leana Wen, emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, contributing columnist for The Washington Post, and former health commissioner for the city of Baltimore. Dr. Wen, thanks so much for joining us tonight. Welcome to America: Are We Ready?

Dr. Leana Wen: Happy to be with you. Thank you, Brian.

Brian: Listeners, we'll get to your calls, be patient, in just a couple of minutes.

Christina: Dr. Wen, thanks so much. I have a quick question for you about masks. We wanted to get your opinion about the national or state or local mask mandates. The head of the CDC, Dr. Redfield, said that universal mask-wearing could cut down on transmission possibly by even 80%. We also saw the lieutenant governor of Ohio go out and possibly try and convince Republican voters to wear a mask and he was booed quite handily off the stage. Where do you stand on masks and what should our listeners know about masks having just heard Avik Roy talk about transmission and the new phase of the virus?

Dr. Wen: I appreciate the question and I do think it's important for us to talk about masks from the perspective that I'm familiar with, which is from the public health and science point of view. I don't come to this as a politician with a political perspective or rather less talk about the data around masks. Let's talk about also how things have changed since the beginning because at the very beginning of the pandemic, before it was a pandemic, we didn't know about asymptomatic transmission.

We also didn't know about aerosol transmission, that these much smaller droplets can carry the virus that causes COVID-19 and because you don't know if you have COVID. Other people around you don't know that, that they haven't. Now that we know about both of these elements, that's why mask-wearing is such a critical component to reducing trend transmission. There have been various reviews that have been done in the literature that have found that wearing a mask can reduce your rate of transmitting and acquiring COVID-19 by as much as five to six times.

Five to six times. Another way of looking at it, another review found that universal mask-wearing will reduce the risk of getting COVID-19 by 80%. Think about this. If this were a medication that we could all take today, wouldn't we all want to take a medication that could reduce our risk of getting and transmitting coronavirus by 80%? I think we all would, so let's all use that public health tool that we have at our disposal.

Brian: Dr. Wen, how much of the Avik Roy segment did you hear and how much of that would you want to respond to? He certainly was saying things that are not what I usually hear from the public health professionals who I interview about the risks of opening and the consequences of opening that we're seeing around the world, for example.

Dr. Wen: I did not hear much of what he had said. Although having been on other panels with him in the past, I think I understand some of what his viewpoint would be. Look, here's the thing. Of course, there are real consequences to having things be closed, but I think that there is a real danger to somehow pitting public health as the enemy. As in there are individuals want to say that public health is the enemy of the economy or the enemy of schools being reopened when, actually, following public health best practices is the key to reopening everything safely.

Suppressing the level of virus of the community is the best tool that we have to ensure that our schools can reopen safely. The same for coming back to work. I think we should start with a premise that we all want the same thing. It would be wonderful to return to a pre-pandemic normal. It would be wonderful. I have two little kids. I would love for them, for my toddler who's in preschool, to be able to go to school again. I would love for us to not-- I have a newborn and the grandparents, none of our grandparents, because they live so far away, they have not come to visit my baby. I would love for that thought to be the case, but the way we get there is through a national strategy. Hope alone is not that strategy.

Brian: Would you disagree with him that little kids don't transmit the virus to adults?

Dr. Wen: Yes, because that's not what the data shows. There needs to be a lot more research around this, but this is what we know about children and introspection. I wrote a Post column actually about this about a month ago or so. We know that from a very large study in South Korea, looking at tens of thousands of contacts that were traced that children 10 and older transmit the virus as much as adults do. Younger than 10, the jury is out.

There are some studies that have found that daycare centers can safely reopen if they follow public health best practices, but also if they reopen in areas with relatively low levels of viral spread. The studies that have been done in other countries where schools have reopened safely, the big difference is they started out with a much lower level of viral spread than we did in this country. In addition, there have been some conflicting reports of younger children.

Some showing that younger kids do not transmit as much, but there was a report published by the CDC that definitively established from some contact tracing studies in Utah that younger kids, including an eight-month-old baby, did transmit the virus to adults that these younger kids are around. Is it possible and likely that young kids transmit less than older kids? Maybe, but to say that children and young children do not transmit the virus is simply not true because that's not what the science tells us.

Brian: He argued that the death rates early on that were so high in the New York, New Jersey area when the virus got in from Europe before anybody realized took place mostly in nursing homes and other congregate care facilities and was not tamped down by the aggressive lockdown in New York, more aggressive in California and Texas undertook because when they reopened, they saw a lot of cases, but they didn't see the deaths.

This is what Trump is running on. This is what a lot of Republicans are running on. This is why we frame it as, is there a liberal-conservative? Is there a Democratic, Republican way to fight the virus? In electoral terms this year, there really is. How much would you agree with or disagree with his argument about how to look at the resurgence in Texas, in California versus the lack of resurgence in New York?

Dr. Wen: Well, there are a few things here. One, in terms of the strategy, I would just view the strategy as, do we want the status quo or do we want something dramatically different as a country? The status quo is what got us to where we are where we hit this terrible milestone of 200,000 deaths today where there is still, as far as I can tell that no one has been able to explain to me, a national strategy around something as basic as testing.

Why is it that we are eight months into this pandemic and we still don't have nearly enough testing even when other countries around the world have figured it out? We have not. To me, overall, it's a question of, are we okay with the way that things have been going where we're facing 200,000 more deaths by the end of the year or do we need to do something very different? In this case, to me, that also means following the science, not muzzling our scientists, not having politicians be dictating what the CDC is doing, not have something as basic as vaccine approval be subject to political expediency rather than following public health guidance.

That to me is the difference between the current strategy and the strategy that we really need as a nation in order to fight this virus. I think the other point about New York and I think one of the points that I've heard Avik Roy make in the past is around whether we can just somehow keep older individuals and those who are vulnerable cordoned off in some way and let everybody else return back to society. That just doesn't work. We have seen with this very contagious virus that what starts in the young doesn't stay in the young, and also young people do get sick and have died from this virus.

Christina: Thanks, Dr. Wen. Brian, let's hear from Joe from Acworth, Georgia. Joe, welcome to WNYC.

Brian: And you're on America: Are We Ready? Hi.

Joe: Hi. How are you, guys?

Brian: Good.

Christina: Good. Thanks.

Joe: All right. I guess to the question of--

Christina: Your question?

Joe: Yes, I guess to the question of whether or not there's a Republican or a Democratic way. I would say no, but there should be an American way that we handle these kinds of situations. My question is, or I guess comment/question would be, why-- we've realized that political apparatus is not the best way to handle this, right? To the doctor's point or the professor's point, political components have a horrible track record with dealing with these types of issues, so why are Americans not holding our industries responsible for taking care of this situation? That's what we do best in the United States, right? For instance, perfect example is the shortage of masks.

Why aren't hospitals-- We have the most expensive health care in the world by any metrics you can measure it on, per capita, any way you want to cut it. Why aren't we holding private healthcare institutions responsible for not having stockpiles of masks? Why do we point the finger at political institutions? Say, "Well, why didn't you tell us to stockpile mask?" That's not their responsibility. We pay these people. We're a capitalist society. We pay those people to do it. We should be using the industrialized ingenuity of the United States, which cannot be compared to any other country in the world to handle this pandemic, yet we blame ourselves for not being effective--

Brian: Apologies. Let me jump in for time. Dr. Wen, he's put some interesting notions on the table there. Do you want to respond?

Dr. Wen: One thing I very much agree with Joe on, which is that there should not be a Democratic or Republican response to the pandemic. This should be something that is driven not at all by politics or partisanship but rather by public health. We should be having scientists and public health leaders lead this public health response. In fact, I'm very troubled when something as basic as mask-wearing becomes politicized when there are political rallies that are occurring in defiance of public health guidelines in the middle of a pandemic where people are flaunting these public health guidelines.

I agree that there should be a public health and really a political strategy. I disagree though with Joe about who should be leading this response. Of course, private institutions, hospitals have a role to play here. We've seen hospitals and many others step up in part because the federal government has utterly failed in their response. You cannot expect that individual hospitals or health departments on the local or state levels can prepare for a national disaster in the same way that you imagine that a hurricane hits a particular area.

Everyone would want to help the hospitals and the individuals who are hard hit in that area that you would get supplies from other places. There's no way that one institution can prepare for a disaster of this kind of scale. This is the reason why there is a national stockpile. This is why there is a national preparedness plan for exactly this type of scenario. In fact, one problem that we had in this entire response is that we've had hospitals that because they didn't have the supplies needed for this public health catastrophe, they were forced to bid against each other, bid against the states.

States had to bid against the federal government, against one another. Four basic supplies like masks and gowns. Believe me. I would think it's a travesty that we left our health care professionals without this basic equipment to protect them. As a result, many people died and got infected who shouldn't have who are frontline workers. Where is that responsibility ultimately? I've seen our hospitals do their best and do everything they can. I've seen local and state leaders try their best. At the end of the day, it's failure of a national response because this was a public health pandemic that required a national mobilization that we did not receive.

Christina: Now, let's hear from Chuck from Dallas-Fort Worth. Chuck, welcome. Welcome to America: Are We Ready?

Chuck: Hi. How are you doing? Dr. Wen, first and foremost, thank you for your service and all the other health professionals out there on the pandemic. Personally, I don't believe that this issue should be a partisan, period. It's based on science and science-- Unfortunately, though, in the past histories, the world has been argued as being flat such, but science in the end really prevails. The fact that microaerosols can cause it are important, wearing a mask, staying distance, washing your hands.

I think we can have both things where we protect the patients, protect the population, protect those at risk, and still have an economic engine. It's been shown in other countries that's the case. If we all can keep that and keep reminding each other that's our patriotic duty to keep everybody safe, your brother's safe. Right now, at 200,000, we've lost more people here now than we have in multiple wars combined that the United States has been engaged in.

Brian: Chuck, thank you very much. Dr. Wen, what do you think?

Dr. Wen: I'm afraid that I got cut out, I think, for part of Chuck's question.

Brian: You know what? I'm going to bring on one more questionnaire then. That's going to be Sam in Somerdale, New Jersey and then we'll get your response to the set. Sam, you're on America, Are We Ready? Hi.

Sam: Hi. Good evening. I'm a card-carrying nerd right down to the pocket protector slide rule and TI-30 calculator with a denim pouch. The right way? We've got to follow the scientists, the doctors that follow the scientists, not the doctors that believe in dinosaur DNA being part of a lot of our problems. The question is, following the science and following the statistics, we've seen other political leaders from around the world become afflicted and I don't want anyone to get sick.

My politics aside, I don't want anyone to get sick. What would explain Donald Trump's good luck though? He's doing everything wrong. He's in the middle of these big groups. Granted Air Force One isn't your typical airliner, but he's subjecting himself to being in all these great, big bubbles. What is he doing and why aren't we doing that if we want to see that we don't get afflicted? Like the saying goes, "If you want to be successful, find someone who's been successful and do what they're doing."

Brian: Sam, thank you very much. Really, what the President is doing, if we want to take him literally, Dr. Wen, is anybody who comes in contact with the President because he's the President has to get tested. If we were doing that for all our workplaces, for all our schools, then it would be safe to reopen, right?

Dr. Wen: Yes. This is why-- and I think Sam made this great point. The President can keep himself safe, why can't the rest of us too? Exactly right, Brian, that what the President has is testing, daily testing of all those who come in contact with him. The moment they test positive, they are identified, they are isolated, their contacts are traced, and that infection is boxed in.

That's exactly what public health experts, including myself, have been saying all along in this pandemic that we need to stop infection, to stop the transmission among asymptomatic individuals. The President and his team recognize that it's important for him. Why can't we have it for the rest of America? That type of daily, widespread, accessible, free testing is something that we all should have.

Imagine what a game-changer that would be and how much safer it would be, how much safer we would feel about going back to work or have your kids going back in present instruction. That's the example of something that we need a national response to do. It just does not make sense for every hospital, every workplace, every school to be setting up their own testing and figuring out how to pay for it when it's something that can be done much better at scale by the federal government?

Christina: Dr. Wen, it's so interesting that you use the phrase "game-changer," considering we know that the NFL and the NBA has resources to test every day and daily.

Brian: I have to jump in because we are coming to a break. Dr. Leana Wen from George Washington University and Washington Post columnist, thank you very much for joining us.

Dr. Wen: Thank you.

Brian: America: Are We Ready? continues in a minute.

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Brian: This is America: Are We Ready? Is there a liberal or conservative way, a Democratic or Republican way to stop a pandemic? Joining us now is Asma Khalid, who is NPR-- one of the NPR political correspondents and co-host of NPR's Politics Podcast. Asma, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to America: Are We Ready?

Asma Khalid: Hi there. My pleasure.

Brian: A central question this hour has simply been, is there a Democratic and Republican way to fight the pandemic? We certainly seem to be hearing it from Republicans and Democrats speaking differently about it and the approach to it. We heard differently from our two guests prior to you. Does your reporting indicate that there actually is a Democratic and Republican way to fight the pandemic or at least a claim that there is?

Asma: I think there's certainly a Democratic and Republican interpretation of the severity of the pandemic. I say that, Brian, because I've gone out and I've spoken with voters and did some reporting on just the way that both Republicans and Democrats are campaigning in this moment. It's wildly different, right? Whether we're talking about Democrats being very resistant to actually knock on doors and do this in-person physical campaigning compared to Republicans who have been, for months at this point, doing physical, traditional campaigning.

Christina: Asma, for our listeners, what would you say are the biggest differences between Biden and Trump right now and how they're going to fight the virus going forward? Let's forget about the debate on how Trump has performed thus far. What are the biggest concrete differences going forward that our listeners should be aware of as we move into November 3rd?

Asma: In terms of how they'll actually handle COVID? It's hard to say not to look at Trump's past behavior in assessing how he may address the coronavirus pandemic. I say that because he's been president now for, I would say-- Where we were going on what? 200,000 deaths at this point. He has been the president in-charge. I think for a lot of voters, it is perplexing to say, how can we talk about President Trump's future sense of how to deal with this pandemic without assessing his past performance? That all being said, he and Biden have both put a high priority on getting a vaccine.

I think where they differ, though, is in the sort of emphasis on distribution. Joe Biden has emphasized a lot that it's not just about ensuring that you have a vaccine that's ready to go, but it's the ability to figure out, how will you actually equitably distribute that vaccine and also implement it? He believes that there needs to be public buy-in for this vaccine and that some folks don't necessarily aren't going to be lining up eagerly to get this vaccine. Well, President Trump has put a large emphasis, I would say, on just the speed of getting that vaccine out rather than focusing as much in his public comments on how to actually distribute that vaccine.

Brian: Let's take another call. Here is Nick in Raleigh, North Carolina. Nick, you're on America: Are We Ready? Hi.

Nick: Hi. I guess what I was going to state and perhaps ask was that I believe whether Democratic or Republican, the response should be a national one. I think the main differences between Biden and Trump, at least how I perceived them, is Biden kind of advocates a national approach. I making mask-wearing a national thing. Why I say that is because if we have to wear masks in North Carolina but Virginia doesn't, the virus doesn't respect like that political delineation there between the states.

The caller from New Jersey had said that what is Trump doing successfully that he hasn't contracted it yet. I'm not sure, but I do know that whether he's visiting or doing rallies in Florida, Oklahoma, or Wisconsin that the rules that surround him and contact with him don't change. He's not adapting differently to Florida than he would North Carolina.

Brian: Well, remember, we established earlier that anybody who comes in close contact with the President has to test negative beforehand. That's what he's doing consistently. Nick, thank you very much. Do you want to respond to Nick at all, Asma?

Asma: I think the point of emphasizing Joe Biden's desire to have a more national response is an important point. Though I will also make notice of the fact that Biden has been pushed repeatedly by journalists on exactly how he would implement any sort of a national mask mandate. He had to walk that language back and suggest that it would be his belief that he would like to highly encourage people to model that behavior.

There's a recognition that being president, that authority doesn't entirely necessarily lie with him. This comes back to maybe, again, this idea of modeling different behavior. We had in President Trump, somebody who himself did not wear a mask publicly, very rarely, I should say, would wear a mask publicly, has held large indoor rallies and events at a moment in time when referring from scientists that those things are not safe. You see in Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, just a desire to be more cautious in that regard.

I think it's worthwhile, though, pointing out that part of how President Trump has been able to be just, I think, so careful, it has been this rapid testing of everyone who comes into close contact with him. I'm somebody who's covered Joe Biden for a while. Biden was not necessarily having that same dynamic. We as reporters who covered him for a while were doing temperature checks and wearing masks. It was not as if every reporter who covered him was getting a rapid test every time that we were in the same room with him.

Christina: Asma, can you bring us up to date on the issue of the Centers for Disease Control posting and then removing a warning about aerosols? That's the small particles of virus that you can get infected from indoors even if you're more than six feet away from an infected carrier. What's your reporting saying there?

Asma: To be honest, this is a story that I will say I relied a lot on our own science reporters for. I can only speak to it second-hand, which is, as you mentioned, the fact that there was information put up about the air transmission of this virus that was put up, removed. It seemed to be unclear as to why this was removed. It didn't seem to be particularly contentious advice or guidance, but I don't have first-hand reporting on that.

Brian: Let's take another call then. Sarah in Cincinnati, you're on America: Are We Ready? Hi, Sarah.

Sarah: Hi, sorry. I just wanted to say that the question of, "is there a difference between?" I think the answer is yes. I think it's a very clear yes. There's a difference between how Democrats and Republicans or even conservatives and liberals, if you want to use different labels, have handled this. I think it's really clear that the Democrats or the liberal side has said, "Hey, scientists, this is it. This is your job. Tell us what to do. Guide us. Lead us. Help us get through this with the least number of deaths and least number of illnesses."

We've seen that that's the guidance that's going with. We see from the Republican side, being led from a side that wants to value money and business which, yes, we need to get businesses through this, but values the financial side rather than the human life side besides that mortalities and stuff. We still don't know. I think also the Republicans are pushing very hard the number of deaths when we don't know what the long-term health consequences of this virus are. We're already seeing high rates of probably permanent cardiac and lung function deficits and potentially even neurologic deficits from people who've had COVID.

Even if you don't die, that's not necessarily the whole thing. I think even though there should be a unified national response like we would see in a war time, this is a war, we are instead seeing political infighting and treating this as if science and facts and reason are something to be against. I think that that is not going to look-- history's not going to look favorably on conservatives and Republicans for that. I think in 20, 50 years when we look back, that's not going to be a good look for Republicans and conservatives. Certainly, it's something we should be aware of now.

Brian: Sarah, thank you so much. Asma, in the context of your reporting, is there a meaningful scientific debate? The guest we had earlier is from an economics-oriented think tank, though he's a long-time healthcare reporter with a conservative perspective but with an economic spent, do you see from your reporting-- and I realize you're covering the presidential campaign, not science per se. Do you see citing of science equally or even substantially by both sides or really, as the caller suggests, only really from one side?

Asma: We see a greater emphasis, I would say, on trusting the advice of scientists from Joe Biden in his public remarks. That's actually the specific language they'll often use. I mentioned earlier, the Democrats have been extremely hesitant to go out and doorknock and physically campaign. For a while, I would ask Democrats, both state-level Democrats as well as the presidential campaign, about their reasoning.

I would often be told just the same standard response, which is that we are listening to scientific advisors. We've been talking to scientists. They are advising us that X, Y, and Z. I think that on the contrary side from President Trump, we have seen him give advice that has been countered to what some of his own public health experts have advised, whether that's, again, on mask usage or on a particular drug usage that did not yet seem to be actually validated.

I would say beyond not necessarily even just trusting science and referring to scientists, we've actually seen many incidences at this point now where President Trump has actually countered the advice that he is being given by his own public health experts. While we might see them there physically giving advice, the President does not seem to always at least publicly agree with that advice that's being given.

Christina: Asma, the first debate is a week from tonight. The topics for the debate have already been released. COVID-19 is on the list. As someone who's followed Joe Biden and also the President quite closely, how do you think the President is going to be able to defend his record with COVID-19 and the 200,000 deaths that we've seen thus far?

Asma: I think that's an excellent question and I'm really eager to see how he attempts to defend his record. I will say that we saw a glimpse of this during the Republican convention of him just talking. It was a counterfactual narrative because if you look at public opinion polling, the President, his favorability in terms of how people believe he's handled the pandemic, I believe it's below 40% and it wasn't always that low.

You can go back to March and April where I would say it was about 50-50 in terms of where the public stood on how he was doing. He has lost support and he's lost support specifically amongst some Democrats and independents who were willing to think that, initially, he seemed to be headed down the right path. What I will say you consistently hear from Republicans is that this is an unforeseen natural circumstance that no president could have been fully equipped for.

That is the defense I've often heard from Republicans. Secondly, they will say that he has tried his best to focus on the economy and the need in their view to restart and re-jump the economy. At this point in time on one issue, I will say, that we have seen President Trump seem to do better than Joe Biden on in public opinion polling has been the economy. That's been fairly consistent over this summer.

Brian: You mentioned that one of the differences with respect to going forward is how they would handle vaccine distribution as well as development. Here's a little bit of Joe Biden on that.

Joe Biden: Someday, the virus is going to go away by a miracle. Even if it does nothing, it's going to go away by a miracle. It won't go away like a miracle. In fact, even if we get a vaccine, it will not be available for most populations well under 2021.

Brian: Of course, the beginning of that when he said the virus would go away like a miracle, he was quoting Donald Trump and mocking Donald Trump saying that. What would be his vaccine policy? What if they asked him to distinguish his vaccine policy from Donald Trump's vaccine policy? What would Joe Biden say? You've been covering the Biden campaign.

Asma: Yes, he talks a lot about the need to trust scientists and he's outlined because at some point earlier on, I would say at this point is a couple of weeks back, but President Trump's campaign and the White House were accusing Joe Biden and Kamala Harris of being anti-vaxxers because they had expressed some reservations about whether or not they would fully trust a vaccine that came out and whether or not they feel like the public would fully trust a vaccine under President Trump.

At that point in time, Biden and his campaign outlined a couple of key things that they feel need to occur in order for a vaccine to just have the trust of the American public. One of those being that this vaccine, whoever develops it, they felt needed to be thoroughly vetted by a range of independent scientists and experts. In terms of how he intends to actually distribute it, I will say, candidly, I don't have clear guidance on how Biden intends to clearly distribute it.

He has just emphasized in his campaign, has emphasized the fact that that is a monumental, logistical challenge. They do not feel like Trump has had great practice in actual logistical processes in the past. They point to the White House has struggles in terms of equitably distributing PPE earlier on during this pandemic. They feel like the President's strong suit has not been logistical issues and that vaccine distribution will likely entail a massive logistical operation.

Christina: Asma, earlier, we played a clip of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson re-shutting some things after a second wave started to take hold. In Israel, the shutdown is even more sweeping after they had seemingly gotten the virus under control. Now, we see things in India and the city of Madrid as well each in their own way. It's all pretty ominous in a lot of ways. Do you see political ramifications here from these early examples of a second wave and reopenings that say didn't work out so well and what should we expect on our side of the pond?

Asma: Political ramifications, gosh, that's such an interesting-- I think that, for a while, in terms of political ramifications from COVID, I will say I saw a lot of that throughout the summer. I think there's so many additional moving parts to our presidential campaign at this point. You speak about a second wave. I think a lot of scientists and some politicians have been warning the public that the United States is very plausibly likely to undergo and to suffer from the second wave at some point and that things will be bad. We've heard this from public health experts, likely once flu season and COVID are combined together.

That all being said, I just think in this particular moment that we're in, there are other political ingredients that are affecting the campaign. Whether that's now an open Supreme Court seat, whether that's the economy which is, of course, tides to COVID. I think for some Republicans, that's seen as an independent factor, or whether that's issues around racial justice and policing. I will say that in my view as impactful as COVID is, no doubt it is hugely impactful, I think, in terms of its potential political ramifications. When I talk to voters, it is not the only factor that's of utmost importance to them in terms of how they're thinking about the November election.

Brian: I guess I was just thinking with that question in our last 30 seconds, Asma, that if Trump is running on reopen, reopen, reopen, which he is, and we now see the other countries that we compare ourselves to, the UK, most closely where Boris Johnson was on the same page of Donald Trump once upon a time as Donald Trump, and then they did reopen. Now, he's ordering it re-closed in the UK because they're having a spike. Trump is saying, "Open, open, open." One would think there might be political ramifications to that. We have 15 seconds.

Asma: Sure. Just really quickly, I will say. I don't think that a lot of Republican base voters will look to what's happening in the UK as indicative of what they think would happen here and that Trump's base has been very loyal to him for a while. In my view, this election largely hangs on turnout more than persuasion.

Brian: Asma Khalid covering primarily the Biden campaign for NPR and co-host of NPR's Politics Podcast. Thank you so much.

Asma: You're welcome.

Brian: We are out of time for this hour of America: Are We Ready to Vote in a Pandemic? America: Are We Ready? is produced by Megan Ryan, Lisa Allison, and Zach Gottehrer-Cohen. That's Jason Isaac at the audio controls. With Fordham University Political Science Professor Christina Greer, I'm Brian Lehrer.

 

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