Power Up: ‘It’s a race issue.’ Black voters express deep skepticism election process will be fair

Hours-long lines and technical glitches at polling stations, skepticism about voting by mail, and a lack of trusted sources in politics or the media are all helping fuel a surge to vote, Black voters said in two focus groups last week conducted by an independent research firm. (Power Up was provided access to both hour-and-a-half long focus groups on the condition of anonymity because it yielded proprietary information sold to political organizations seeking to increase turnout of voters of color.) 

• “It feels like our race as a whole — people of color — it feels like we’re all once again on the auction block of sorts and being misled intentionally so that we don’t go out and vote,” said Bradley, a young Black voter from Atlanta. “It all comes to educating our own selves and not relying on the news outlets and sociopath president.” 
• Bradley was among the majority of voters in both focus groups who said they were feeling “very concerned” about the outcome of the election. After being read the lead of a CNN article about “early hiccups” in Georgia’s in-person voting, he said he would encourage people to turn out anyway and not to “believe in the hype and the games being played. That was our biggest error in 2016.” 

The two focus groups of Black voters from battleground states — one comprised of men between the ages 35 and 55, the other of Millennial and Gen Z voters — unanimously agreed that this is an extraordinarily consequential election. Many appeared very motivated to vote against President Trump. This election comes as Trump has been criticized for his handling the summer of protests against racism and bias in policing — and the coronavirus pandemic, which has taken a disproportionate toll on Black Americans who are nearly five times as likely to be hospitalized and twice as likely to die as Whites. 

In the session, the voters also expressed outrage about what they described as disparities in the voting system designed to make voting more challenging. The groups were asked directly if they felt they might ultimately be deprived of their right to vote due to race, in light of Amy Coney Barrett’s testimony last week, when she declined to say whether she believes voter discrimination exists in American on the basis of race. 

• “We have these long lines in Georgia and places in the South and people waiting 10 and 12 hours to vote — it is a race issue,” said Cameron, a young Black woman from South Florida, who is currently studying voting and voter suppression as a graduate student. 
• When asked to describe why he is so concerned about the current status of the country, Kimothy, a middle-aged Black man from Pennsylvania, cited headlines that “should be very perplexing to voters” about various Republican efforts to limit absentee voting.
• Yet Kimothy also blamed Democrats for not doing enough to stop it: “Everyone in power can push back and they aren’t — they’re just pushing fear onto people. There is no checks and balances for these people.”
• By the numbers: “Black and Hispanic voters are less likely than White voters to say the voting process will be easy,” according to a Pew Research Center survey released last week. Sixty-eight percent of White voters say they expect voting to be “very or somewhat easy” compared to 55 percent of Black voters who say the same.

Many in the group also said they planned and preferred to vote in person — despite the health risks — because they’re worried about mail delivery and their absentee ballots not being counted. 

• “If narrow results prompt a wave of post-Election Day ballot litigation, it could affect voters of color more than White voters,” reports our colleague Amy Gardner. “Research by political scientist Dan Smith at the University of Florida found that the mail ballots of Black voters have been rejected at higher rates in past elections. And in North Carolina this fall, election officials have flagged the ballots of a disproportionate number of Black voters with errors that must be remedied to count.”
• “Communities of color tend to vote by mail at lesser rates, because of reasons including historical attachment to voting in person, but there are also communities that can’t reliably trust their mail and are not getting good mail service,” Myrna Pérez, director of the Voting Rights & Elections program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, Business Insider’s Grace Panetta earlier this year. 

Civil rights activists are also concerned about disinformation dampening turnout. The recent felony charges in Michigan against right-wing operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman for intimidating voters with inaccurate robocalls seemingly designed to discourage Black voters from casting their ballots by mail exemplify these concerns. 

Kristen Clarke, the president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, whose group is also suing the operatives, warned the challenge will be even bigger to distinguish between disinformation and real threats as voters head to the polls. “There are high anxiety levels about disinformation campaigns and voter intimidation efforts during early voting and on election day — concerns about armed militia, etc.,” Clarke told Power Up. “We need to be vigilant but need to be sure about responding to actual threats.” 

• “Voter suppression is alive and real,” Clarke told Power Up. “But it’s important that we not breathe life into [disinformation] efforts until we know they are actually having an impact and are very much real.” 
• While Clarke is dedicated to ensuring potential efforts to suppress the vote don’t work, she also notes it can concerns have the opposite intended effect — increasing turnout because Black voters see “the lengths people will go to in order to strip people of their voice.” 

HISTORIC EARLY VOTING TURNOUT: “As of Sunday, nearly 28 million Americans had cast ballots, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida. The number, equivalent to more than one-fifth of the overall turnout in 2016, suggests that Trump will have to make up a huge Democratic advantage on Election Day,” Amy reports.  

• “ … In interviews in 10 states where early voting is underway, Black voters said this year’s presidential election is the most important of their lifetime — some calling it more consequential even than 2008, when those who were old enough went to the polls in record numbers to make Barack Obama the country’s first Black president.”
• “So far, this year’s mobilization is on track to rival 2008, when historic levels of Black turnout helped propel Obama to the White House. Since [Hillary] Clinton’s lower performance among Black voters in 2016, Democrats have lamented whether a White candidate, including Biden, could ever attract the same level of support as Obama,” according to Amy.
• “ … Turnout numbers in states with available data show a surge of Black participation in the first few days of in-person voting. In North Carolina, which began early voting Thursday, Black voters accounted for more than 30 percent of turnout on the first day — well above their 23 percent share overall in 2016.”

Many voters in the focus groups also expressed a determination to vote this year despite their anxieties about the process. 

• “The main reason I find it important to vote is because as a community we have a responsibility to vote and I find it counterintuitive that people complain about the presidency but then don’t go out and vote because they don’t know enough about the candidates or policies,” said Samuel, a young Black voter from Arizona. “I encourage everyone to read up and go out and vote because it’s the most important vote of our lifetime.”
• “This year is different because of the president — there’s a whole lot of racism at the forefront,” Eric from Michigan said about why he feels there is more at stake this year than previous elections. 

FOCUS ON GEORGIA: Voting-rights advocate Stacey Abrams has already raised the specter of voter suppression as long lines plague polling places in the state. However, local officials and others have urged patience, warning that it’s still too soon to judge the factors at play — especially amid a record high turnout: “More than 128,000 Georgians went to the polls Monday, a record for the first day of early voting in the state, according to the secretary of state’s office,” per the Associated Press’s Kate Brumback.

• “Election officials have limited resources — especially during the pandemic,” Rick Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California-Irvine, tweeted Monday night. “Great enthusiasm on the first day of voting leading to long lines does not necessarily mean there’s a systemic problem. Let’s give it a few days.” 

That being said, “the clogged polling locations in metro Atlanta reflect an underlying pattern: the number of places to vote has shrunk statewide, with little recourse,” Stephen Fowler of Georgia Public Broadcasting reports in partnership with ProPublica. “Although the reduction in polling places has taken place across racial lines, it has primarily caused long lines in nonwhite neighborhoods where voter registration has surged and more residents cast ballots in person on Election Day.”

• “Since the U.S. Supreme Court’s Shelby v. Holder decision in 2013 eliminated key federal oversight of election decisions in states with histories of discrimination, Georgia’s voter rolls have grown by nearly 2 million people, yet polling locations have been cut statewide by nearly 10%, according to an analysis of state and local records by Georgia Public Broadcasting and ProPublica. Much of the growth has been fueled by younger, nonwhite voters, especially in nine metro Atlanta counties, where four out of five new voters were nonwhite, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s office.” 
• The changes have put the squeeze on nonwhite communities: “An analysis by Stanford University political science professor Jonathan Rodden of the data collected by Georgia Public Broadcasting/ProPublica found that the average wait time after 7 p.m. across Georgia was 51 minutes in polling places that were 90% or more nonwhite, but only 6 minutes in polling places that were 90% white,” Fowler reports. 

Deborah Birx has had it: “She recently confronted Vice President Pence, who chairs the task force, about the acrimony,” our colleagues write. “Birx, whose profile and influence has eroded considerably since Atlas’ arrival, told Pence’s office that she does not trust Atlas, does not believe he is giving Trump sound advice and wants him removed from the task force.” 

• Pence declined to mediate the dispute: “He told Atlas and Birx to bring data bolstering their perspectives to the task force and to work out their disagreements themselves.”
• She’s not alone either: “These days, the task force is dormant relative to its robust activity earlier in the pandemic. Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, Birx, Surgeon General Jerome Adams and other members have confided in others that they are dispirited.”

Atlas has argued against expanding testing across the board: “Birx and Fauci have advocated dramatically increasing the nation’s testing capacity, especially as experts anticipate a devastating increase in cases this winter. They have urged the government to use unspent money Congress allocated for testing $9 billion, according to a Democratic Senate appropriations aide,” our colleagues write. 

• Atlas has repeatedly squashed their efforts: He claims, our colleagues write, “young and healthy people do not need to get tested and that testing resources should be allocated to nursing homes and other vulnerable places, such as prisons and meatpacking plants.”

RED STATE GOVS RESIST RESTRICTIONS: “The coronavirus is hammering middle America this fall, with records shattered daily in states that had escaped the worst of the pandemic this spring and summer. Case numbers also are rising again in other states where the virus was thought to be under control after months of widespread illness,” Griff Witte and Tony Romm report.

• But Republican governors aren’t changing their approach: “Instead, they preach the mantra of ‘personal responsibility,’ insisting that government interventions such as mask mandates or business restrictions are either unnecessary or harmful, and that people should be trusted to make their own decisions about how to keep themselves — and each other — healthy.”

Public health experts say this isn’t enough: “An overreliance on personal responsibility, health officials say, is one of the reasons America’s struggle with the coronavirus has been so destructive, with more than 8 million cases and at least 219,000 people dead,” our colleagues write.

PELOSI PUTS THE WHITE HOUSE ON THE CLOCK: “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that an economic stimulus deal must be struck within 48 hours in order for Congress to pass legislation before Election Day, but she noted that significant differences still divide her and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin,” Erica Werner report.

Where things stand: “They have yet to come to terms on funding for cities and states, child care, tax credits for lower-income Americans, liability protections sought by Republicans and more. They have areas of agreement including aid to airlines and a new round of $1,200 stimulus checks to Americans,” our colleague writes.

• It was thought that the two sides made progress on testing: “Mnuchin said Thursday he was prepared to accept Pelosi’s demands for a national strategic testing plan, subject to minor edits. But Pelosi said Sunday those edits turned out to be significant, including changing ‘shall’ to ‘may,’ ‘requirements’ to ‘recommendations’ and ‘a plan’ to ‘a strategy, not a strategic plan.’”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Mitch McConnell is forging his own path: The Senate will be voting on Wednesday on a $500 billion bill, essentially the same legislation Democrats blocked last month. 

• What’s in it: “Money for schools and health care, liability protections, small-business spending and enhanced unemployment insurance that is lower than the $600 weekly that expired July 31. It does not include new relief checks for individuals.”

DEMS FRET WHILE LEADING: “Democrats went to the polls last time certain they would elect the first woman ever to become president, and were punched in the face with a Trump upset. This time they feel the punch coming from a thousand miles away. The worry is visceral and widespread, unassuaged by Biden’s lead in the polls,” Michael Scherer and Scott Clement report.

• What Trumpland is feeling: “Privately, Trump’s advisers are less bullish than the boss, admitting that he is behind in several key states. But they believe he can close the gap over the next 15 days, and have no interest in broadcasting anything short of certainty.” 

Trump struggling with his closing argument: “In the week since he restarted in-person campaigning, Trump has continued to prove he is his own biggest impediment by drawing more attention to himself each day than to Biden,” the New York Times’s Jonathan Martin reports.

• He once again put his party in awkward spots this weekend: “A new low point came on Saturday, when Trump held a rally in Muskegon, Mich., where he demanded that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) reopen the state and then said ‘lock them all up’ after his supporters chanted ‘lock her up!’ It was a stunningly reckless comment from a president whose own F.B.I. this month arrested 14 men who it said had been plotting to kidnap Whitmer and were captured on video with an array of weapons allegedly planning the crime.”

And on Sunday, Trump offered this bizarrely worded attack:

Biden has an aptly named misinformation fighting war room: “The effort, internally called the ‘Malarkey Factory,’ consists of dozens of people around the country monitoring what information is gaining traction digitally, whether it’s resonating with swing voters and, if so, how to fight back,” Matt Viser reports.

• “The three most salient attacks the Malarkey Factory has confronted so far are claims that Biden is a socialist, that he is ‘creepy’ and that he is ‘sleepy’ or senile.’”

Trump’s senioritis: “Republicans have won the senior vote in the last four presidential elections,” the Wall Street Journal’s Aaron Zitner and Dante Chinni report. “This year, older voters are showing signs of having second thoughts about President Trump, one reason he is lagging behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden in polls of some of the most important battlegrounds.”

• Key stat: “The president won seniors by 7 percentage points in 2016 but has trailed Biden by 10 points with that group all year in Wall Street Journal/NBC News polling.”

Federal judge strikes down Trump plan to slash food stamps for nearly 700,000 people: “In a scathing 67-page opinion, Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell of D.C. condemned the Agriculture Department for failing to justify or even address the impact of the sweeping change on states, saying its shortcomings had been placed in stark relief amid the pandemic,” Spencer S. Hsu reports.

Beijing says it’s bouncing back from covid: Chinese officials said “that gross domestic product expanded by 4.9 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, putting China’s economy back toward its pre-coronavirus trajectory half a year after the pandemic gutted its economy,” the WSJ’s Jonathan Cheng report.

The Fall Classic is set: “Against all odds, the 2020 baseball season has made it to the World Series, and it arrived there Sunday night with an epic, sprawling Game 7 in the National League Championship Series that reminded everyone why the sport endured all the tumult of spring and chaos of summer amid a global pandemic,” Dave Sheinin writes from Arlington, Tex., where the Los Angeles Dodgers will take on the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday night.

• The Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-3, capping off their run as just the 14th team in history to come back from a 3-1 series deficit.

The LA Times’s sports front: