theintercept--2020-03-16--How Jair Bolsonaro’s Son, Eduardo, Confirmed His Father’s Positive Coronavirus Test to Fox News, The

How Jair Bolsonaro’s Son, Eduardo, Confirmed His Father’s Positive Coronavirus Test to Fox News, Then Lied About It

at roughly 9:30 a.m. EST , a columnist with the large Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Dia at roughly 9:30 a.m. EST , a columnist with the large Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Dia published an article reporting that sources inside Brazil ’ s presidential palace had confirmed that the first coronavirus test administered to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had been returned and indicated the president tested positive for the virus .
In Fox News studios in both New York and Washington , producers , reporters and on-air talent paid rapt attention to this story , in large part because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ close aide who had already manifested symptoms and tested positive — had met days earlier at Mar-a-Lago with President Donald Trump , key Trump aides ( including Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump ) , and Fox News ’ prime-time anchor Tucker Carlson .
But Fox was unwilling to report something as significant as a positive coronavirus test for the Brazilian president without further confirmation .
As a result , according to employees inside Fox News with first-hand knowledge of the episode but who are unauthorized to speak publicly about the matter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from either Bolsonaro or one of his three politician-sons .
To obtain it , they quickly reached out to Alex Phares , the son of Trump confidant and Fox News analyst Walid Phares .
The younger Phares has become well-known in conservative circles for arranging media and other appearances for Bolsonaro ’ s youngest political son , the São Paulo Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro , including booking him on three separate panels at the Conservative Political Action Conference ( CPAC ) , held the week prior to the Trump/Bolsonaro Mar-a-Lago meeting .
CPAC itself @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases , including the leader of Spain ’ s far-right Vox Party Santiago Abascal , whom Eduardo boasted of meeting there ( meeting and shaking hands with Abascal is what led Texas Senator Ted Cruz to self-isolate for the second time ) : At roughly 10:00 a.m .
ET on Friday morning — roughly 40 minutes after the O Dia column appeared — Phares , first by text and then by voice , confirmed to Fox News that Eduardo , that morning , had told him that his father ’ s first test @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was still unwilling to report this without speaking to one of the Bolsonaros directly .
They asked Phraes if he could arrange both a telephone and on-air interview with Eduardo .
Roughly thirty minutes later , Fox spoke directly to Eduardo , who , Fox sources insist , stated unequivocally that his father had received the results of his first coronavirus test and it was positive ; the president ’ s son said that they were awaiting the results of a second test .
Eduardo and Fox agreed that he would be interviewed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at 11:30 a.m. EsT .
Shortly before the interview , Eduardo again confirmed that his father ’ s first test was positive for the presence of coronavirus .
Hearing two separate , definitive confirmations from Eduardo , as well as from Phares , Fox had the confidence it needed to have its White House correspondent , John Roberts , announce on Twitter that President Bolsonaro had tested positive for the coronavirus , and Fox shortly thereafter published a print article online and a broadcast report with the same news .
All of that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eduardo .
The Brazilian media had exercised the same caution as Fox , unwilling to report something so momentous based solely on an anonymously-sourced report in O Dia .
But once Fox News had reported the news based on Eduardo ’ s confirmation , they naturally began noting Fox ’ s report .
News of the president ’ s positive coronavirus test spread quickly online .
As soon as that happened , Eduardo went on the offensive with a standard Bolsonaro family tactic : accusing the Brazilian media of maliciously fabricating “ Fake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ particularly inflammatory accusation where it involved reports of his father ’ s positive coronavirus test .
But when Brazilian media outlets united to make clear that the report was not theirs but Fox News ’ — a network beloved by the Bolsonaros and their movement — and that the named source for the story was Eduardo himself , Eduardo had two choices : he could either admit that Fox was telling the truth and that he had confirmed the positive test to them , or he could start accusing Fox News of lying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a series of increasingly unhinged tweets that extended into Saturday morning , Eduardo insisted that he had never told any reporter — including one at Fox — that his father had tested positive for the coronavirus .
Sitting in front of photos of a machine gun and a Revolutionary American flag , Eduardo then recorded videos in both Portuguese and English ( see below ) in which he insisted ( caps in original ) “ THIS IS ALL A LIE ” : Then , in a bizarre on-air mid-Friday interview on Fox News @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had claimed that his test result , which he has still yet to show the public , was negative — Eduardo told the visibly baffled and frustrated Fox anchor Sandra Smith that he was not aware of the results of any first coronavirus test for his father , and continually tried to shift the interview back to his father ’ s claim that the ultimate test was negative .
In response to Eduardo ’ s false accusations that Fox had fabricated their conversations with him , Fox News issued an avalanche of clear @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Intercept that they were shocked and indignant — and still are — as they watched Eduardo repeatedly lie and brazenly deny that he told the network that his father ’ s test was positive , even though he had done exactly that twice .
And they hardly disguised their anger .
Their public responses included an article — headlined : “ Brazil President Bolsonaro ’ s son claims father tested negative for coronavirus despite earlier reports ” — that made clear at the beginning that Eduardo was lying : Reports out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ positive , and his son appeared to confirm this to Fox News earlier Friday , adding that further testing was being done to confirm the diagnosis and the second set of testing was expected later in the day .
However , in a subsequent appearance on “ America ’ s Newsroom , ” Eduardo denied his father had ever tested positive .
Fox then released the text messages between its journalists and Phares to Globo ’ s flagship news program , Jornal Nacional , in which Phares confirmed to Fox that he had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s positive test .
Meanwhile , on Twitter , Fox ’ s John Roberts explicitly stated — as Eduardo was denying it — that the president ’ s son “ had told Fox that his father had a preliminary POSITIVE test for coronavirus.
” Another Fox reporter , Chris Irvine , similarly made clear that Eduardo was lying , tweeting on Friday : “ Earlier today , Eduardo Bolsonaro confirmed reports that his father had tested positive for coronavirus to FOX News and said they were waiting for further testing .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his father had tested negative for coronavirus.
” From the start , the Bolsonaros ’ behavior has been extremely strange regarding the question of whether the Brazilian President does or not have the coronavirus .
Indeed , when a widely respected reporter from Brazil ’ s largest newspaper , Monica Bergamo of Folha , reported that Bolsonaro ’ s Communications chief Fabio Wajngarten had returned from the U.S. with classic COVID-19 symptoms and was being tested , Wajngarten attacked her on Twitter and implied she had made it up — only for his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ day .
Now that nine members of Bolsonaro ’ s entourage have tested positive , the mystery has less clarity than ever .
Almost immediately after claiming that his test was negative — just hours after his son told Fox that it was positive — Bolsonaro refused to release the results of the test itself or have any doctor vouch for them , and then , without explanation , the president ’ s office announced that Bolsonaro would remain in isolation for fourteen more days and would undergo another test .
But then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ encouraged by Bolsonaro aimed at the Congress and Supreme Court , but which Bolsonaro ultimately discouraged on the grounds that it would be dangerous in a pandemic , the Brazilian President shocked everyone by leaving the palace — and the medical isolation he was supposed to be in — to join a crowd of supporters .
He proceeded to touch at least 272 of them , including shaking hands , fist bumping and taking their telephones to snap selfies before handing them back .
Prior to that on Twitter , Bolsonaro had implicitly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ street gatherings — in direct contradiction of the urgings of his own Health Minister — by posting photos of the protests in various cities .
That President Bolsonaro — who has mocked the pandemic from the start as a “ fantasy ” and a media exaggeration and whose key evangelical allies are now calling it a hoax — would leave his medical isolation and risk the health of his own supporters by physically interacting with them outraged much of the country , particularly as it appeared to send exactly the opposite message about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , where huge numbers of poor people live in extreme density in favelas and where the health system is already utterly dysfunctional , are desperate to convey .
But the question of Bolsonaro ’ s health remains shrouded in mystery .
And that mystery is now fueled by his son inadvertently starting a war with a news outlet they trained their followers to worship : Fox News .
Eduardo Bolsonaro essentially forced Fox News to prove that the Bolsonaros are liars by accusing the network of fabricating conversations they had with him in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s positive test .

Credit: Alex Brandon/AP
On Friday morning,
at roughly 9:30 a.m. EST, a columnist with the large Rio de Janeiro newspaper O Dia published an article reporting that sources inside Brazil’s presidential palace had confirmed that the first coronavirus test administered to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro had been returned and indicated the president tested positive for the virus.
In Fox News studios in both New York and Washington, producers, reporters and on-air talent paid rapt attention to this story, in large part because Bolsonaro and his entourage — including a close aide who had already manifested symptoms and tested positive — had met days earlier at Mar-a-Lago with President Donald Trump, key Trump aides (including Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump), and Fox News’ prime-time anchor Tucker Carlson.
But Fox was unwilling to report something as significant as a positive coronavirus test for the Brazilian president without further confirmation. As a result, according to employees inside Fox News with first-hand knowledge of the episode but who are unauthorized to speak publicly about the matter, they decided they needed first-hand confirmation from either Bolsonaro or one of his three politician-sons. To obtain it, they quickly reached out to Alex Phares, the son of Trump confidant and Fox News analyst Walid Phares.
The younger Phares has become well-known in conservative circles for arranging media and other appearances for Bolsonaro’s youngest political son, the São Paulo Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro, including booking him on three separate panels at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), held the week prior to the Trump/Bolsonaro Mar-a-Lago meeting. CPAC itself was the site for several now-confirmed coronavirus cases, including the leader of Spain’s far-right Vox Party Santiago Abascal, whom Eduardo boasted of meeting there (meeting and shaking hands with Abascal is what led Texas Senator Ted Cruz to self-isolate for the second time):
Durante o @CPAC conheci pessoalmente o líder do partido espanhol de direita VOX @vox_es , Santiago Abascal @Santi_ABASCAL , e outros parlamentares do partido. Vamos aprendendo uns com as experiências dos outros no combate ao socialismo. Estamos juntos!https://t.co/cl3mxcRnqM — Eduardo Bolsonaro?? (@BolsonaroSP) March 2, 2020
At roughly 10:00 a.m. EST on Friday morning — roughly 40 minutes after the O Dia column appeared — Phares, first by text and then by voice, confirmed to Fox News that Eduardo, that morning, had told him that his father’s first test had indeed returned positive. But Fox was still unwilling to report this without speaking to one of the Bolsonaros directly. They asked Phraes if he could arrange both a telephone and on-air interview with Eduardo.
Roughly thirty minutes later, Fox spoke directly to Eduardo, who, Fox sources insist, stated unequivocally that his father had received the results of his first coronavirus test and it was positive; the president’s son said that they were awaiting the results of a second test. Eduardo and Fox agreed that he would be interviewed about the coronavirus test on-air via Skype at 11:30 a.m. EST.
Shortly before the interview, Eduardo again confirmed that his father’s first test was positive for the presence of coronavirus. Hearing two separate, definitive confirmations from Eduardo, as well as from Phares, Fox had the confidence it needed to have its White House correspondent, John Roberts, announce on Twitter that President Bolsonaro had tested positive for the coronavirus, and Fox shortly thereafter published a print article online and a broadcast report with the same news. All of that reporting made clear that their source was Eduardo.
The Brazilian media had exercised the same caution as Fox, unwilling to report something so momentous based solely on an anonymously-sourced report in O Dia. But once Fox News had reported the news based on Eduardo’s confirmation, they naturally began noting Fox’s report. News of the president’s positive coronavirus test spread quickly online.
As soon as that happened, Eduardo went on the offensive with a standard Bolsonaro family tactic: accusing the Brazilian media of maliciously fabricating “Fake News” against his father, a particularly inflammatory accusation where it involved reports of his father’s positive coronavirus test. But when Brazilian media outlets united to make clear that the report was not theirs but Fox News’ — a network beloved by the Bolsonaros and their movement — and that the named source for the story was Eduardo himself, Eduardo had two choices: he could either admit that Fox was telling the truth and that he had confirmed the positive test to them, or he could start accusing Fox News of lying. He chose the latter.
In a series of increasingly unhinged tweets that extended into Saturday morning, Eduardo insisted that he had never told any reporter — including one at Fox — that his father had tested positive for the coronavirus. Sitting in front of photos of a machine gun and a Revolutionary American flag, Eduardo then recorded videos in both Portuguese and English (see below) in which he insisted (caps in original) “THIS IS ALL A LIE”:
Hoax of the day: media lies that @jairbolsonaro has Corona Virus and that I confirmed it to Fox News. THIS IS ALL A LIE, DETAILS IN THE VIDEO BELOW. (unlike most of the media, Fox News has credibility and my respect, but today they were wrong, I didn't tell any information) pic.twitter.com/W0Ti16D85K — Eduardo Bolsonaro?? (@BolsonaroSP) March 13, 2020
Then, in a bizarre on-air mid-Friday interview on Fox News — by which point President Bolsonaro himself had claimed that his test result, which he has still yet to show the public, was negative — Eduardo told the visibly baffled and frustrated Fox anchor Sandra Smith that he was not aware of the results of any first coronavirus test for his father, and continually tried to shift the interview back to his father’s claim that the ultimate test was negative.
In response to Eduardo’s false accusations that Fox had fabricated their conversations with him, Fox News issued an avalanche of clear and emphatic denunciations. Fox sources told the Intercept that they were shocked and indignant — and still are — as they watched Eduardo repeatedly lie and brazenly deny that he told the network that his father’s test was positive, even though he had done exactly that twice. And they hardly disguised their anger.
Their public responses included an article — headlined: “Brazil President Bolsonaro’s son claims father tested negative for coronavirus despite earlier reports” — that made clear at the beginning that Eduardo was lying:
Reports out of Brazil had initially indicated Bolsonaro had tested positive, and his son appeared to confirm this to Fox News earlier Friday, adding that further testing was being done to confirm the diagnosis and the second set of testing was expected later in the day. However, in a subsequent appearance on “America’s Newsroom,” Eduardo denied his father had ever tested positive.
Fox then released the text messages between its journalists and Phares to Globo’s flagship news program, Jornal Nacional, in which Phares confirmed to Fox that he had just spoken to Eduardo about the president’s positive test.
Meanwhile, on Twitter, Fox’s John Roberts explicitly stated — as Eduardo was denying it — that the president’s son “had told Fox that his father had a preliminary POSITIVE test for coronavirus.”
After telling @FoxNews that his father had a preliminary POSITIVE test for coronavirus, Eduardo Bolsonaro now tells @FoxNews the test was NEGATIVE. Bolsonaro says has been in touch with the White House. — John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) March 13, 2020
Roberts then went on the air on Fox and, standing in front of the White House, emphasized that Eduardo was lying in his denials:
Fox News chamando o @BolsonaroSP de mentiroso. Que momento delicioso pra quem deve ter imaginado que os caras eram a versão americana do Terça Presa pic.twitter.com/PasfIfcalJ — Samuel Pancher (@SamPancher) March 13, 2020
Another Fox reporter, Chris Irvine, similarly made clear that Eduardo was lying, tweeting on Friday: “Earlier today, Eduardo Bolsonaro confirmed reports that his father had tested positive for coronavirus to FOX News and said they were waiting for further testing. He later appeared on FOX News and claimed his father had tested negative for coronavirus.”
From the start, the Bolsonaros’ behavior has been extremely strange regarding the question of whether the Brazilian President does or not have the coronavirus. Indeed, when a widely respected reporter from Brazil’s largest newspaper, Monica Bergamo of Folha, reported that Bolsonaro’s Communications chief Fabio Wajngarten had returned from the U.S. with classic COVID-19 symptoms and was being tested, Wajngarten attacked her on Twitter and implied she had made it up — only for his positive test to be confirmed the next day.
Now that nine members of Bolsonaro’s entourage have tested positive, the mystery has less clarity than ever. Almost immediately after claiming that his test was negative — just hours after his son told Fox that it was positive — Bolsonaro refused to release the results of the test itself or have any doctor vouch for them, and then, without explanation, the president’s office announced that Bolsonaro would remain in isolation for fourteen more days and would undergo another test.
But then yesterday, during nationwide anti-democracy protests originally encouraged by Bolsonaro aimed at the Congress and Supreme Court, but which Bolsonaro ultimately discouraged on the grounds that it would be dangerous in a pandemic, the Brazilian President shocked everyone by leaving the palace — and the medical isolation he was supposed to be in — to join a crowd of supporters. He proceeded to touch at least 272 of them, including shaking hands, fist bumping and taking their telephones to snap selfies before handing them back. Prior to that on Twitter, Bolsonaro had implicitly encouraged his supporters to attend the mass street gatherings — in direct contradiction of the urgings of his own Health Minister — by posting photos of the protests in various cities.
Bolsonaro teve contato direto com ao menos 272 pessoas durante ato, mostra vídeo -via @EstadaoPolitica https://t.co/stqpCdv9RG — Estadão ?? (@Estadao) March 16, 2020
That President Bolsonaro — who has mocked the pandemic from the start as a “fantasy” and a media exaggeration and whose key evangelical allies are now calling it a hoax — would leave his medical isolation and risk the health of his own supporters by physically interacting with them outraged much of the country, particularly as it appeared to send exactly the opposite message about social distancing that healths officials in Brazil, where huge numbers of poor people live in extreme density in favelas and where the health system is already utterly dysfunctional, are desperate to convey.
But the question of Bolsonaro’s health remains shrouded in mystery. And that mystery is now fueled by his son inadvertently starting a war with a news outlet they trained their followers to worship: Fox News. Eduardo Bolsonaro essentially forced Fox News to prove that the Bolsonaros are liars by accusing the network of fabricating conversations they had with him in which he clearly confirmed his father’s positive test.
Update, March 16, 2020, 7:58 p.m.
The number of people in Bolsonaro’s entourage with him in the U.S. and now confirmed as positive for the coronavirus is 14.


theintercept--2020-03-16--Coronavirus Capitalism — and How to Beat It

I ’ ve spent two decades studying the transformations that take place under the cover of disaster .
I ’ ve learned that one thing we can count on is this : During moments of cataclysmic change , the previously unthinkable suddenly becomes reality .
In recent decades , that change has mainly been for the worst — but this has not always been the case .
And it need not continue to be in the future .
This video is about the ways the still-unfolding Covid-19 crisis is already remaking our sense of the possible .
The Trump administration @ @ @ @ @ @ @ busily exploiting the crisis to push for no-strings-attached corporate bailouts and regulatory rollbacks .
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is moving to repeal financial regulations that were introduced after the last major financial meltdown , as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act .
China , for its part , is indicating that it will relax environmental standards to stimulate its economy , which would wipe out the one major benefit the crisis has produced so far : a marked drop in that country ’ s lethal air pollution .
But this is not the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , we have also seen organizing at the city and state levels win important victories to suspend evictions during the pandemic .
Ireland has announced six weeks of emergency unemployment payments for all workers who suddenly find themselves out of work , including self-employed workers .
And despite U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden ’ s claims during the recent debate that the pandemic has nothing to do with Medicare for All , many Americans are suddenly realizing that the absence of a functioning safety net exacerbates vulnerabilities to the virus on many fronts @

I’ve spent two decades studying the transformations that take place under the cover of disaster. I’ve learned that one thing we can count on is this: During moments of cataclysmic change, the previously unthinkable suddenly becomes reality. In recent decades, that change has mainly been for the worst — but this has not always been the case. And it need not continue to be in the future.
This video is about the ways the still-unfolding Covid-19 crisis is already remaking our sense of the possible. The Trump administration and other governments around the world are busily exploiting the crisis to push for no-strings-attached corporate bailouts and regulatory rollbacks. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is moving to repeal financial regulations that were introduced after the last major financial meltdown, as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. China, for its part, is indicating that it will relax environmental standards to stimulate its economy, which would wipe out the one major benefit the crisis has produced so far: a marked drop in that country’s lethal air pollution.
But this is not the whole story. In the United States, we have also seen organizing at the city and state levels win important victories to suspend evictions during the pandemic. Ireland has announced six weeks of emergency unemployment payments for all workers who suddenly find themselves out of work, including self-employed workers. And despite U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden’s claims during the recent debate that the pandemic has nothing to do with Medicare for All, many Americans are suddenly realizing that the absence of a functioning safety net exacerbates vulnerabilities to the virus on many fronts.
This crisis — like earlier ones — could well be the catalyst to shower aid on the wealthiest interests in society, including those most responsible for our current vulnerabilities, while offering next to nothing to the most workers, wiping out small family savings and shuttering small businesses. But as this video shows, many are already pushing back — and that story hasn’t been written yet.


theintercept--2020-03-16--Thousands Call on Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio to Postpone Tomorrow’s Primaries

But DeWine ’ s recommendation was struck down by a judge hours later .
Unless it is appealed , Ohio voting will be ordered ahead as planned , likely setting the stage for confusion tomorrow .
According to local reports , the judge cited his own lack of authority on the matter : “ There are too many factors to balance in this uncharted territory to say that we ought to take it away from the legislature and elected statewide officials , and throw it to a common pleas court judge in Columbus , ” said the judge .
He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ available for a month , and we ’ ve known about the novel coronavirus since January .
( CDC guidelines on large gatherings were put in place on Sunday . )
The move follows days of pressure for the four states scheduled to vote on Tuesday — Arizona , Florida , Illinois , and Ohio — to postpone their primaries .
In an open letter , more than 1,600 people , including 100 medical professionals , called for the next round of presidential primaries to be postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic .
All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Tuesday have declared a state of emergency in response to the outbreak .
The decision to hold both the Democratic and Republican primary elections — which have closed down schools , restaurants , and bars to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus — could exponentially grow the amount of cases and death toll .
In Arizona , the state Republican Party decided months ago not to hold a presidential primary .
The letter , which is addressed to the Democratic National Committee and the secretaries of state for the four @ @ @ @ @ @ @ push their primaries to May .
Until then , it reads , “ mail-in voting should be implemented throughout under the guidance of health and election authorities.
” Postponing the elections would also give states enough time to explore alternatives to in-person voting at a sufficient scale , the letter notes , particularly if the emergency continues to worsen .
“ In addition to our primary concern about public health , we believe this would be beneficial to the democratic process , ” the letter continues .
“ As people are understandably avoiding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turnout to be depressed .
Rescheduling the primaries would ensure that more people are allowed to exercise their right to vote without fear.
” The letter is in line with updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Sunday , which warned against gatherings of larger than 50 people — a number that public health officials said was itself way too high .
But the call to postpone the elections cuts against a lobbying campaign by scores of progressive groups urging exactly the opposite .
Two states — Georgia and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ primaries .
On Friday , Louisiana became the first in the nation to do so , rescheduling their April 4 primary for June 20 .
Georgia followed up the next day , with election officials postponing the March 24 presidential primary to May 19 .
In response to Louisiana postponing its primary , a broad swath of progressive and voting rights groups , organized by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights ’ Voting Rights Task Force , pushed back .
“ Sudden changes to election times , locations , and more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and in some instances the denial of , citizens ’ right to vote , ” the signers wrote .
“ We are concerned about the impact of the decision of the state of Louisiana to move the date of its primary elections .
We applaud the approach taken by election officials in Ohio , Arizona , Florida , and Illinois to hold their primary elections on March 17 , with proper public health safety measures in place.
” One of the signers of the statement was influential Democratic think tank Center for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s senior health policy expert , has been warning that decisions made by mayors and governors at this moment will have major ramifications .
Yet CAP remains a signer of the letter criticizing Louisiana for postponing its election and applauding other states for not doing so .
over the virus and the nation ’ s hospital capacity , presidential candidate Joe Biden spread dangerous misinformation over the weekend , tweeting : “ If you are feeling healthy , not showing symptoms , and not at risk of being exposed to COVID-19 : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recently told CNN that “ transmission by people who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic is responsible for more transmission than previously thought.
” Sen. Bernie Sanders , in an interview after the presidential debate on Sunday , said it doesn ’ t “ make a lot of sense ” to hold the primaries on Tuesday considering the pandemic .
“ I would hope that governors listen to the public health experts and what they are saying is … we don ’ t want gatherings of more than 50 people , ” Sanders said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on CNN Sunday night , insisted that the CDC has deemed voting to be safe .
“ The CDC and folks have said it ’ s safe out there for Tuesday , so I don ’ t know what Senator Sanders was talking about , ” she said .
That is false , as the CDC has offered no such assurance .
When Bernie Sanders spokesperson Briahna Joy Gray , a former Intercept editor , noted that Symone Sanders ’ s claim was false , CAP President Neera Tanden fired back at her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party does not control whether the primaries go forward on Tuesday , and that the decision lies with the states themselves .
“ Where we are working with state parties is on their delegate selection plans , which are things like filling their delegate slots by the June 20th deadline , ” a spokesperson wrote in a statement .
“ As you ’ ve seen , some states have canceled county conventions , etc .
Our rules this year make sure that presidential preference is locked at the first step ( caucuses/primaries ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do is fill those delegate slots with people , and we are allowing flexibility for that.
” In the case of a global health crisis , the DNC ’ s silence amounts to support ; pressure from the DNC — which decided not to have a live audience at Sunday ’ s debate and is monitoring the spread of Covid-19 ahead of the planned convention in July — could go a long way toward stopping the spread of the virus .
And while there have been concerns that postponing the primaries could give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the November general elections , it could cut the other way too .
If the party declines to postpone , and the elections trigger an outbreak , that failure could be its own pretext for Trump ( who does not have unilateral authority to postpone elections ) .
Progress Now Arizona is also a signer of the letter encouraging voting to continue in the four states .
When asked if they stand by the statement , Director Emily Kirkland said “ the short answer is yes.
” She emphasized in an emailed statement @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are signed up for the Permanent Early Voting List , meaning that they already received their ballots in the mail and mailed their ballots back .
She added that “ Arizona has a lot of measures in place already to reduce lines and crowding , ” citing the fact that voters in Maricopa County “ can now vote at any of 151 polling places — so if there ’ s a line at one polling place , voters can go to another one nearby.
” But on Friday , the Board of Supervisors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about 80 polling locations on Election Day because it doesn ’ t have the supplies needed to keep them clean .
On Friday , an Arizona judge blocked Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes from mailing ballots to eligible voters who weren ’ t on a permanent early-voting list .
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich that day had also filed an emergency motion to block Fontes from sending out the ballots , arguing that he didn ’ t have the authority to send ballots to people who hadn ’ t requested them and suggested @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a swarm of illegal ballots and immense voter confusion.
” On Friday , Maricopa County Election Day Director Scott Jarrett walked away during a press conference where he was explaining how and why the county had reduced the number of polling locations in order to adequately clean and sanitize them with limited available supplies .
“ We had 229 polling locations available prior to the plan , and then after the board ’ s vote , I went and performed an analysis to make sure that all those voters had 151 vote anywhere @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ I ’ m sorry , I can ’ t do this , ” he said mid-sentence and left the podium .
Another group that signed onto the statement , the Center for Popular Democracy , said they ’ re “ evaluating our organizational stance ” on the issue but don ’ t currently have an update to share .
like CAP fight to keep the elections on , progressive candidates waging grassroots campaigns point out that , even if primaries were to be held on Tuesday , they would now likely favor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ canvassing to rally small donors .
They say they ’ re facing challenges from the virus that their opponents , who are often more politically well-connected and backed by high-dollar donors , can use to their advantage .
Both Biden and Sanders canceled campaign rallies and events late last week .
Sanders ’ s surrogate , former Ohio Democratic state Sen. Nina Turner , had to cancel an appearance at a community meeting scheduled Friday with Anthony Clark , who ’ s running in the crowded Democratic primary for the 7th District .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ longtime Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush in Chicago ’ s 1st District on Tuesday , was scheduled to speak as well .
Marie Newman , an ally of Emmons ’ s , has launched a rematch against incumbent Dan Lipinski , the son of an old-school Chicago machine politician , who was handed his seat by his father .
Newman lost a close race in 2018 and has momentum heading into the primary .
As of Monday , she told The Intercept that her canvassers are continuing to knock on doors , and she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the campaign is taking precautions to mitigate the possibility of spreading or contracting coronavirus .
“ We are trying to simultaneously keep everyone safe and voting , ” Newman said , speculating that turnout would likely be down as a result of the pandemic .
She announced Friday that she ’ d be voting early with her family on Saturday ahead of Tuesday ’ s election .
Asked Monday if she thought the primary should be postponed , she seemed resigned .
“ We are where we are , ” she said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and mayor.
” The race in Ohio ’ s 3rd District , where Morgan Harper is taking on Columbus Rep. Joyce Beatty , may also be heavily affected by Covid-19 .
Harper ’ s campaign had been organizing heavily on college campuses in Columbus , but the virus has thrown in a wild card .
Ohio State University , which is inside the district , initially sent its students home to combat the spread of the virus , and the campaign hunted down students to urge them to request absentee ballots .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting until June 2 .
As of Monday , Harper ’ s canvassers were continuing to hit doors , forgoing the handshake and keeping their distance .
“ There ’ s such a general awareness that people aren ’ t making physical contact , ” said field director Lyla Shorenstein .
DeWine ’ s attempt to delay the Ohio primary follows other preemptive moves by the governor to stop the spread of the virus .
On Sunday , DeWine anticipated that schools in the state may remain closed through the end of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ medical experts are telling us , [ the outbreak ] may not peak until the latter part of April or May , ” he said .
“ We ’ ve informed superintendents while we ’ ve closed schools for three weeks , odds are we will go on a lot longer.
” In a joint statement released Friday , the four secretaries of state said the elections will carry on as normal : “ Unlike concerts , sporting events or other mass gatherings where large groups of people travel long distances to congregate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ period of time , polling locations see people from a nearby community coming into and out of the building for a short duration.
” To ensure a safe environment , the press release said , “ Guidance from voting machine manufacturers on how best to sanitize machines , guidance from CDC on best practices for hand washing , and guidance from our respective state health officials is being provided to every polling location.
” Other states are beginning to follow the lead .
Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler announced Thursday that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ events and postpone in-person events .
The party is switching from traditional canvassing to digital organizing for its April 7 election and encouraging voters to request absentee ballots online .
It ’ s also conducting virtual trainings on its new digital strategy .
“ The coronavirus pandemic , and Trump ’ s epic mishandling of it , simultaneously transforms the way we ’ re going to campaign this year and intensifies the urgency of winning , ” Wikler told The Intercept .
In Wisconsin , he said , the party is focused on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ possibly enlist to help end this nightmare.
” Update : March 16 , 2020 , 7:40 p.m .
This piece has been updated to reflect an Ohio judge ’ s decision to reject Gov .
DeWine ’ s recommendation , and keep polls open on Tuesday .
Update : March 16 , 2020 , 4:40 p.m. A spokesperson for CAP provided a statement following publication : “ The coronavirus presents a serious challenge for election administration , as states must carefully balance concerns about public health against the impact on our democracy of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ election and for primaries later this year , each state must do everything it can to provide all voters an opportunity to register and vote from home , including by expanding access to online voter registration , no-excuse absentee ballots , vote by mail , and early voting .
States with primaries tomorrow , in which a significant number of people have already voted , have made significant adjustments to address public health concerns , but the decision they face continues to be particularly difficult .
As states plan for upcoming elections , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ try to keep the number of voters present at any one time at 50 or less , such as facilitating social distancing during the voting process .
”

On Monday night, Ohio’s Republican Gov. Mike DeWine announced that the state’s public health director would order that polls be closed on Tuesday to prevent the spread of Covid-19, in accordance with CDC guidelines.
As such, @DrAmyActon will order the polls closed as a health emergency. While the polls will be closed tomorrow, Secretary of State @FrankLaRose will seek a remedy through the courts to extend voting options so that every voter who wants to vote will be granted that opportunity. — Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) March 17, 2020
DeWine first suggested the state should not go forward with in-person voting on Tuesday on Monday afternoon, but his recommendation was struck down by a judge hours later, sowing confusion. According to local reports, the judge cited his own lack of authority on the matter: “There are too many factors to balance in this uncharted territory to say that we ought to take it away from the legislature and elected statewide officials, and throw it to a common pleas court judge in Columbus,” said the judge. He also noted that absentee ballots have been available for a month, and we’ve known about the novel coronavirus since January. (CDC restrictions on gatherings of more than 50 were put in place on Sunday.)
#BREAKING: Judge rejects state's lawsuit to change election day. As of now, in-person voting will be held tomorrow. https://t.co/ATd2BjQyPp — NBC4 Columbus (@nbc4i) March 16, 2020
The move follows days of pressure for the four states scheduled to vote on Tuesday — Arizona, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio — to postpone their primaries. In an open letter, more than 1,600 people, including 100 medical professionals, called for the next round of presidential primaries to be postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic. All of the four states scheduled to vote on Tuesday have declared a state of emergency in response to the outbreak. The decision to hold both the Democratic and Republican primary elections — which have closed down schools, restaurants, and bars to try to slow the spread of the coronavirus — could exponentially grow the amount of cases and death toll. In Arizona, the state Republican Party decided months ago not to hold a presidential primary.
The letter, which is addressed to the Democratic National Committee and the secretaries of state for the four states, calls for those states to push their primaries to May. Until then, it reads, “mail-in voting should be implemented throughout under the guidance of health and election authorities.” Postponing the elections would also give states enough time to explore alternatives to in-person voting at a sufficient scale, the letter notes, particularly if the emergency continues to worsen.
“In addition to our primary concern about public health, we believe this would be beneficial to the democratic process,” the letter continues. “As people are understandably avoiding public places and crowds, we expect turnout to be depressed. Rescheduling the primaries would ensure that more people are allowed to exercise their right to vote without fear.”
The letter is in line with updated guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released Sunday, which warned against gatherings of larger than 50 people — a number that public health officials said was itself way too high. But the call to postpone the elections cuts against a lobbying campaign by scores of progressive groups urging exactly the opposite.
Two states — Georgia and Louisiana — have already postponed their presidential primaries. On Friday, Louisiana became the first in the nation to do so, rescheduling their April 4 primary for June 20. Georgia followed up the next day, with election officials postponing the March 24 presidential primary to May 19.
In response to Louisiana postponing its primary, a broad swath of progressive and voting rights groups, organized by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Voting Rights Task Force, pushed back. “Sudden changes to election times, locations, and more have been proven to create barriers to, and in some instances the denial of, citizens’ right to vote,” the signers wrote. “We are concerned about the impact of the decision of the state of Louisiana to move the date of its primary elections. We applaud the approach taken by election officials in Ohio, Arizona, Florida, and Illinois to hold their primary elections on March 17, with proper public health safety measures in place.”
One of the signers of the statement was influential Democratic think tank Center for American Progress. Topher Spiro, CAP’s senior health policy expert, has been warning that decisions made by mayors and governors at this moment will have major ramifications.
https://twitter.com/TopherSpiro/status/1239508317703155712
Spiro urged the mayor of Washington, D.C., to shut down a group of restaurants threatening to resist the public order to close.
Yet CAP remains a signer of the letter criticizing Louisiana for postponing its election and applauding other states for not doing so.
Despite dire warnings over the virus and the nation’s hospital capacity, presidential candidate Joe Biden spread dangerous misinformation over the weekend, tweeting: “If you are feeling healthy, not showing symptoms, and not at risk of being exposed to COVID-19: please vote on Tuesday.” Several experts recently told CNN that “transmission by people who are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic is responsible for more transmission than previously thought.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, in an interview after the presidential debate on Sunday, said it doesn’t “make a lot of sense” to hold the primaries on Tuesday considering the pandemic. “I would hope that governors listen to the public health experts and what they are saying is … we don’t want gatherings of more than 50 people,” Sanders said.
Biden adviser Symone Sanders, speaking on CNN Sunday night, insisted that the CDC has deemed voting to be safe. “The CDC and folks have said it’s safe out there for Tuesday, so I don’t know what Senator Sanders was talking about,” she said. That is false, as the CDC has offered no such assurance. When Bernie Sanders spokesperson Briahna Joy Gray, a former Intercept editor, noted that Symone Sanders’s claim was false, CAP President Neera Tanden fired back at her.
https://twitter.com/neeratanden/status/1239401875750993920
A DNC spokesperson said that the party does not control whether the primaries go forward on Tuesday, and that the decision lies with the states themselves.
“Where we are working with state parties is on their delegate selection plans, which are things like filling their delegate slots by the June 20th deadline,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement. “As you’ve seen, some states have canceled county conventions, etc. Our rules this year make sure that presidential preference is locked at the first step (caucuses/primaries), so all state parties have to do is fill those delegate slots with people, and we are allowing flexibility for that.”
In the case of a global health crisis, the DNC’s silence amounts to support; pressure from the DNC — which decided not to have a live audience at Sunday’s debate and is monitoring the spread of Covid-19 ahead of the planned convention in July — could go a long way toward stopping the spread of the virus. And while there have been concerns that postponing the primaries could give President Donald Trump a pretext to postpone the November general elections, it could cut the other way too. If the party declines to postpone, and the elections trigger an outbreak, that failure could be its own pretext for Trump (who does not have unilateral authority to postpone elections).
Progress Now Arizona is also a signer of the letter encouraging voting to continue in the four states. When asked if they stand by the statement, Director Emily Kirkland said “the short answer is yes.”
She emphasized in an emailed statement that roughly 80 percent of Arizona voters are signed up for the Permanent Early Voting List, meaning that they already received their ballots in the mail and mailed their ballots back. She added that “Arizona has a lot of measures in place already to reduce lines and crowding,” citing the fact that voters in Maricopa County “can now vote at any of 151 polling places — so if there’s a line at one polling place, voters can go to another one nearby.” But on Friday, the Board of Supervisors announced that Maricopa County will be eliminating about 80 polling locations on Election Day because it doesn’t have the supplies needed to keep them clean.
On Friday, an Arizona judge blocked Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes from mailing ballots to eligible voters who weren’t on a permanent early-voting list. Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich that day had also filed an emergency motion to block Fontes from sending out the ballots, arguing that he didn’t have the authority to send ballots to people who hadn’t requested them and suggested that doing so could lead to “a swarm of illegal ballots and immense voter confusion.”
On Friday, Maricopa County Election Day Director Scott Jarrett walked away during a press conference where he was explaining how and why the county had reduced the number of polling locations in order to adequately clean and sanitize them with limited available supplies. “We had 229 polling locations available prior to the plan, and then after the board’s vote, I went and performed an analysis to make sure that all those voters had 151 vote anywhere vote centers,” Jarrett said. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this,” he said mid-sentence and left the podium.
Another group that signed onto the statement, the Center for Popular Democracy, said they’re “evaluating our organizational stance” on the issue but don’t currently have an update to share.
While liberal groups like CAP fight to keep the elections on, progressive candidates waging grassroots campaigns point out that, even if primaries were to be held on Tuesday, they would now likely favor incumbents. Primary challengers rely on in-person canvassing to rally small donors. They say they’re facing challenges from the virus that their opponents, who are often more politically well-connected and backed by high-dollar donors, can use to their advantage.
Both Biden and Sanders canceled campaign rallies and events late last week. Sanders’s surrogate, former Ohio Democratic state Sen. Nina Turner, had to cancel an appearance at a community meeting scheduled Friday with Anthony Clark, who’s running in the crowded Democratic primary for the 7th District. Robert Emmons Jr., who is challenging longtime Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush in Chicago’s 1st District on Tuesday, was scheduled to speak as well.
Marie Newman, an ally of Emmons’s, has launched a rematch against incumbent Dan Lipinski, the son of an old-school Chicago machine politician, who was handed his seat by his father. Newman lost a close race in 2018 and has momentum heading into the primary. As of Monday, she told The Intercept that her canvassers are continuing to knock on doors, and she hasn’t stopped campaigning, but the campaign is taking precautions to mitigate the possibility of spreading or contracting coronavirus.
“We are trying to simultaneously keep everyone safe and voting,” Newman said, speculating that turnout would likely be down as a result of the pandemic. She announced Friday that she’d be voting early with her family on Saturday ahead of Tuesday’s election. Asked Monday if she thought the primary should be postponed, she seemed resigned. “We are where we are,” she said. “I leave it to our governor and mayor.”
The race in Ohio’s 3rd District, where Morgan Harper is taking on Columbus Rep. Joyce Beatty, may also be heavily affected by Covid-19. Harper’s campaign had been organizing heavily on college campuses in Columbus, but the virus has thrown in a wild card. Ohio State University, which is inside the district, initially sent its students home to combat the spread of the virus, and the campaign hunted down students to urge them to request absentee ballots. The state will now reportedly extend primary election voting until June 2.
As of Monday, Harper’s canvassers were continuing to hit doors, forgoing the handshake and keeping their distance. “There’s such a general awareness that people aren’t making physical contact,” said field director Lyla Shorenstein.
“Lots of hand sanitizer,” Harper added.
DeWine’s attempt to delay the Ohio primary follows other preemptive moves by the governor to stop the spread of the virus. On Sunday, DeWine anticipated that schools in the state may remain closed through the end of the school year. “Going by what medical experts are telling us, [the outbreak] may not peak until the latter part of April or May,” he said. “We’ve informed superintendents while we’ve closed schools for three weeks, odds are we will go on a lot longer.”
In a joint statement released Friday, the four secretaries of state said the elections will carry on as normal: “Unlike concerts, sporting events or other mass gatherings where large groups of people travel long distances to congregate in a confined space for an extended period of time, polling locations see people from a nearby community coming into and out of the building for a short duration.” To ensure a safe environment, the press release said, “Guidance from voting machine manufacturers on how best to sanitize machines, guidance from CDC on best practices for hand washing, and guidance from our respective state health officials is being provided to every polling location.”
Other states are beginning to follow the lead. Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler announced Thursday that the state party would end all in-person canvassing events and postpone in-person events. The party is switching from traditional canvassing to digital organizing for its April 7 election and encouraging voters to request absentee ballots online. It’s also conducting virtual trainings on its new digital strategy.
“The coronavirus pandemic, and Trump’s epic mishandling of it, simultaneously transforms the way we’re going to campaign this year and intensifies the urgency of winning,” Wikler told The Intercept. In Wisconsin, he said, the party is focused on “connecting with every voter we can possibly enlist to help end this nightmare.”
Update: March 16, 2020, 10:40 p.m.
This piece has been updated to reflect an Ohio judge’s decision to reject Gov. DeWine’s original recommendation to close polls, and the state’s public health director’s subsequent move to shutter them due to a health emergency.
Update: March 16, 2020, 4:40 p.m.
A spokesperson for CAP provided a statement following publication: “The coronavirus presents a serious challenge for election administration, as states must carefully balance concerns about public health against the impact on our democracy of delaying scheduled elections. For the general election and for primaries later this year, each state must do everything it can to provide all voters an opportunity to register and vote from home, including by expanding access to online voter registration, no-excuse absentee ballots, vote by mail, and early voting. States with primaries tomorrow, in which a significant number of people have already voted, have made significant adjustments to address public health concerns, but the decision they face continues to be particularly difficult. As states plan for upcoming elections, they must also consider further steps to try to keep the number of voters present at any one time at 50 or less, such as facilitating social distancing during the voting process.”


theintercept--2020-03-16--Only Eight People Voted From Arizona’s Jails in 2018. Will This Election Be Different?

much of high school encouraging members of his Phoenix , Arizona , community to get out and vote .
The child of a Somali refugee turned union organizer , he ’ d worked with a group that registered over 150,000 mostly Latino voters ahead of the 2016 Maricopa County race that unseated controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio after over two decades in office .
When he turned 18 , he eagerly registered to vote himself .
But by the time the next election rolled around , Kahsai was in jail .
In most states , people who are convicted of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who are in jail awaiting trial and have no prior felony conviction can .
Kahsai knew his rights , so he requested a ballot from inside his cell .
At first , a guard told him that he couldn ’ t have one .
Kahsai pushed back and was eventually granted a request to temporarily change his address to the facility and get an absentee ballot .
The ballot never came .
The election passed , Kahsai was found guilty , and he lost his ability to vote forever .
Many people don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to vote from jail .
But in 1974 , the Supreme Court affirmed that eligible voters who are detained have a constitutional right to the ballot .
The court , however , left it up to states and local jurisdictions to decide how they wanted to ensure pretrial detainee voter access in their jails .
That access widely varies by state and even more so by county .
Oftentimes neither jail staff nor inmates are aware of detainee voting rights .
Restrictions on mail can make receiving ballots impossible , and a lack @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of unknowingly breaking the law can dissuade inmates from requesting a ballot in the first place .
When they do , corrections officers may deny it .
The result is de facto disenfranchisement for people incarcerated in jails .
Take Arizona , a historically conservative but rapidly changing state , which will hold its Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday .
Jail voting there is scant , despite the state ’ s anticipated importance as a potential swing state in the general election .
In the 2018 midterm elections , only eight people in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ data obtained by public records requests made out to each county and shared with The Intercept by the organization Campaign Legal Center , which works on ballot access issues for incarcerated voters .
Kahsai , despite his attempts , was not one of them — he later found out that his ballot never arrived because it was too large for the Maricopa jail ’ s mail size limits .
This election cycle , a coalition of public defenders , voting advocates , and formerly incarcerated people sought to change the situation in Arizona @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maricopa .
Through partnerships with voting officials and the local sheriff , the plan was to end voter disenfranchisement in Maricopa jails by the Democratic primary on March 17 .
They hoped to establish a model that they could bring to every county in the state in time for the general presidential election in November .
But as Tuesday ’ s primary approaches , no one is sure what the county has done to support jail voting and ensure that eligible voters are aware of their rights .
The Right to Vote A @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jail system , Joe Watson found himself inside Lower Buckeye Jail in Maricopa County .
He ’ d robbed a series of convenience stores to satisfy a worsening gambling addiction .
It was 2008 , and Watson , a longtime local journalist , was excited about the upcoming presidential election — the young Democratic senator from Illinois piqued his interest .
But when he requested an absentee voter registration form from each passing correctional officer , he said they merely laughed .
“ They just ignored me .
There was nothing I could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now works as a researcher and consultant at the American Friends Service Committee – Arizona .
“ I was just denied my right to vote .
It was very deflating .
There ’ s a culture inside of guards telling you that you don ’ t matter , and this — this was them proving it .
And that ’ s the end of it , because less than two years later , I had been convicted and sentenced , and I have not had the right to vote since.
” Arizona currently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jails , according to the Department of Justice ’ s National Institute of Corrections .
It ’ s hard to know exactly how many of these individuals are eligible voters ; the sheriffs ’ offices that oversee county jails rarely track this information .
But Alex Gulotta , Arizona director of All Voting Is Local , an organization that works to increase voting access in several key election states , said the group currently estimates that about 60 percent of people in Arizona jails are preconviction and eligible voters .
As with other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in jails plays out along lines of race and class .
Those who can afford bail are less likely to be incarcerated while awaiting trial , and people of color , particularly black and Native people , are disproportionately represented in Arizona ’ s jail population .
“ These are exactly the kinds of voters that our system has excluded through the course of American history .
In Arizona and across the country , the vast majority of people in jails are there because they can not afford to pay bail , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Campaign Legal Center .
“ Which means that in the case of voting , your bail functions like a poll tax : The only thing preventing you from accessing the ballot is an inability to pay.
” Many Arizona county sheriffs ’ offices told The Intercept that they would provide absentee ballots to detainees who requested them .
“ But the thing is , we know they don ’ t always , ” said Adrienne Carmack , advocacy director of Arizona Advocacy Network and Foundation , an organization that works to expand @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Kahsai ’ s case .
Kahsai , who was awaiting trial for robbing multiple Circle K convenience stores , was known to local voter advocates because of his organizing work .
Hearing about his difficulty voting in 2018 , they got together and pressured city officials to make sure that he received a ballot for last year ’ s special runoff election for the mayor of Phoenix .
This is how jail voting works in many states : When it happens , it ’ s often because of committed individuals , either @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s or county registrars ’ offices .
Kahsai said he still felt ecstatic .
“ Because I knew that would likely be my first , and probably last , chance to vote for a really long time , ’ ” Kahsai said in an interview with The Intercept inside Lewis prison , where he is currently incarcerated .
“ I got to use my voice and opinion while I was locked up .
You know how empowered that makes you feel , when everything around you tells you that you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Kahsai was convicted of a felony sentence two months later and lost his right to the ballot .
Other jurisdictions , like Illinois and Washington , D.C. , have made an effort to reach people like Kahsai and seen their voter turnout increase .
“ Once opportunities are available , people take advantage of them , ” Paikowsky said .
“ When you invest resources into the jail — and these resources don ’ t have to be significant — you see that more people vote.
” The Intercept contacted the sheriffs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about their plans for Election Day .
Of the eight that responded , only two , Gila and Yuma , had something of a plan for ensuring detainees were aware of their right to vote .
The counties will put up educational posters and flyers and facilitate voting for people who enter the jail 11 days or less before the election — the deadline to request an absentee ballot in Arizona .
Two other counties tell detainees about their right to vote during the intake process .
It ’ s this patchwork that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
They resolved to start with Maricopa County , the fourth-largest county in the nation and where all eight of the people who voted during the 2018 midterms hailed from .
Last August , the coalition began meeting regularly with the county recorder ’ s office , who in turn said it was communicating with the sheriff ’ s office to develop a system before Arizona ’ s primary the following March .
By November , the coalition had drafted a three-page policy of procedures to ensure the rights of incarcerated voters .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ County Recorder ’ s Office and reviewed by The Intercept , provides a process for every aspect of in-jail voting — from voter registration , to educating inmates about their right to vote , to the casting and receiving of ballots by mail .
It would resolve the issue of mail-in ballots not arriving , as in Kahsai ’ s case , by having Maricopa jails count all official election-related mail as “ legal mail.
” It also included a provision for a special election board to facilitate the voting process for people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ absentee ballot cutoff .
“ Our goal is to have the procedures in place in Maricopa County , to pilot it , by the presidential primary election , ” Carmack told The Intercept in January .
“ And by November , we want to have all the counties have a procedure.
” With the approval of the proposal by the recorder ’ s office , all that remained was for the Maricopa County Sheriff ’ s Office , now led by Democratic Sheriff Paul Penzone , to implement the policies in the jails @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alerting voters of upcoming elections and their rights , begin facilitating monthly voter registration and absentee voting education visits from the recorder ’ s office , and in the 11 days before the election , inform voters of their right to a special election board .
But the coalition said its December meeting with the sheriff ’ s office to check in on its progress was rescheduled .
And rescheduled again in January .
Finally , in February , the group had a meeting with Tommy McKone , director of government and external @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
McKone told the coalition that it would not be possible for the sheriff ’ s office to turn this around “ on such short notice , ” Gulotta recalled .
That made no sense to him , after three months of meetings with the recorder ’ s office , which was supposedly in talks with the sheriff .
“ They acted like it was the first time that they had ever seen them .
Or heard of them , ” he said .
Kathren Coleman , deputy recorder for communications for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ maintained that her office communicated with the sheriff ’ s office throughout the process .
“ The Recorder ’ s Office has worked with detainee-voting advocates , the formerly detained , and public defenders through a coalition-style group to determine the resources needed to provide a program serving jail voters , ” Coleman added .
The Maricopa County Sheriff ’ s Office declined to comment on the meeting with the coalition or on the proposed reforms to the jail voting process .
Penzone declined requests for an interview .
“ I know this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something that MCSO has done for many years and continues to do , which is make ballots available to all inmates who request to vote , ” said Norma Gutierrez-Deorta , the office ’ s director of public information , in an emailed statement .
“ All inmates are granted the opportunity to practice their constitutional right to vote .
We will continue to comply with all requirements of Arizona ’ s election laws.
” As elected officials , sheriffs are tasked with facilitating voting for the jail population in their care , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ name may be on the ballot .
Penzone will be on the ballot in November , running against Arpaio ; so will Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes , who is also a Democrat .
“ The thing they have to be careful of , ” said Paul Bentz , longtime political pollster in the state and senior vice president of research and strategy at HighGround , “ is being attacked for wanting to get these individuals the right to vote so they can vote for them .
The county still leans Republican right @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but I think this ’ ll be a high turnout election .
That ’ s the other thing Penzone is being very mindful of — he has to make sure he ’ s doing things that appeal to that Republican base .
This doesn ’ t seem like one of them.
” “ I ’ m sure that ’ s part of the reason why the sheriff ’ s office doesn ’ t seem to be at least engaging on it at this point , ” he added .
On Tuesday , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ will be back to where they were before : practicing ad hoc advocacy to help eligible voters who try to cast their ballot in the primary .
They don ’ t know how successful that will be , or if people who got to jail in the last 11 days will be allowed to vote at all .
The county is mailing ballots to all registered Democratic voters in light of the coronavirus threat , but those ballots likely won ’ t reach people who have just entered the system .
A global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ officials ’ minds a few months ago , but jail voting should have been , coalition members noted .
“ It ’ s frustrating to have initiated a conversation of that far ahead of the election , and to be here in March of 2020 and still not have accomplished anything meaningful , ” said Gulotta .
“ The number of meetings we had , the number of people who were at the table … the fact that they haven ’ t actually done anything with that seems to be a huge waste @ @

Yonas Kahsai spent much of high school encouraging members of his Phoenix, Arizona, community to get out and vote. The child of a Somali refugee turned union organizer, he’d worked with a group that registered over 150,000 mostly Latino voters ahead of the 2016 Maricopa County race that unseated controversial Sheriff Joe Arpaio after over two decades in office. When he turned 18, he eagerly registered to vote himself.
But by the time the next election rolled around, Kahsai was in jail.
In most states, people who are convicted of a felony cannot vote — but people who are in jail awaiting trial and have no prior felony conviction can. Kahsai knew his rights, so he requested a ballot from inside his cell. At first, a guard told him that he couldn’t have one. Kahsai pushed back and was eventually granted a request to temporarily change his address to the facility and get an absentee ballot.
The ballot never came. The election passed, Kahsai was found guilty, and he lost his ability to vote forever.
Many people don’t know it’s possible to vote from jail. But in 1974, the Supreme Court affirmed that eligible voters who are detained have a constitutional right to the ballot. The court, however, left it up to states and local jurisdictions to decide how they wanted to ensure pretrial detainee voter access in their jails.
That access widely varies by state and even more so by county. Oftentimes neither jail staff nor inmates are aware of detainee voting rights. Restrictions on mail can make receiving ballots impossible, and a lack of access to the internet and fear of unknowingly breaking the law can dissuade inmates from requesting a ballot in the first place. When they do, corrections officers may deny it. The result is de facto disenfranchisement for people incarcerated in jails.
Take Arizona, a historically conservative but rapidly changing state, which will hold its Democratic presidential primary on Tuesday. Jail voting there is scant, despite the state’s anticipated importance as a potential swing state in the general election.
In 1974, the Supreme Court affirmed that eligible voters who are detained have a constitutional right to the ballot.
In the 2018 midterm elections, only eight people in Arizona voted from jail, according to data obtained by public records requests made out to each county and shared with The Intercept by the organization Campaign Legal Center, which works on ballot access issues for incarcerated voters. Kahsai, despite his attempts, was not one of them — he later found out that his ballot never arrived because it was too large for the Maricopa jail’s mail size limits.
This election cycle, a coalition of public defenders, voting advocates, and formerly incarcerated people sought to change the situation in Arizona, starting with its largest county, Maricopa. Through partnerships with voting officials and the local sheriff, the plan was to end voter disenfranchisement in Maricopa jails by the Democratic primary on March 17. They hoped to establish a model that they could bring to every county in the state in time for the general presidential election in November.
But as Tuesday’s primary approaches, no one is sure what the county has done to support jail voting and ensure that eligible voters are aware of their rights.
The Right to Vote
A decade before Kahsai entered Arizona’s jail system, Joe Watson found himself inside Lower Buckeye Jail in Maricopa County. He’d robbed a series of convenience stores to satisfy a worsening gambling addiction.
It was 2008, and Watson, a longtime local journalist, was excited about the upcoming presidential election — the young Democratic senator from Illinois piqued his interest.
But when he requested an absentee voter registration form from each passing correctional officer, he said they merely laughed.
“They just ignored me. There was nothing I could do,” said Watson, who now works as a researcher and consultant at the American Friends Service Committee – Arizona. “I was just denied my right to vote. It was very deflating. There’s a culture inside of guards telling you that you don’t matter, and this — this was them proving it. And that’s the end of it, because less than two years later, I had been convicted and sentenced, and I have not had the right to vote since.”
“These are exactly the kinds of voters that our system has excluded through the course of American history.”
Arizona currently holds an estimated 14,000 people in its jails, according to the Department of Justice’s National Institute of Corrections. It’s hard to know exactly how many of these individuals are eligible voters; the sheriffs’ offices that oversee county jails rarely track this information.
But Alex Gulotta, Arizona director of All Voting Is Local, an organization that works to increase voting access in several key election states, said the group currently estimates that about 60 percent of people in Arizona jails are preconviction and eligible voters.
As with other forms of disenfranchisement, access to voting in jails plays out along lines of race and class. Those who can afford bail are less likely to be incarcerated while awaiting trial, and people of color, particularly black and Native people, are disproportionately represented in Arizona’s jail population.
“These are exactly the kinds of voters that our system has excluded through the course of American history. In Arizona and across the country, the vast majority of people in jails are there because they cannot afford to pay bail,” said Dana Paikowsky, a legal fellow at Campaign Legal Center. “Which means that in the case of voting, your bail functions like a poll tax: The only thing preventing you from accessing the ballot is an inability to pay.”
Many Arizona county sheriffs’ offices told The Intercept that they would provide absentee ballots to detainees who requested them.
“But the thing is, we know they don’t always,” said Adrienne Carmack, advocacy director of Arizona Advocacy Network and Foundation, an organization that works to expand voter access in the state, referring to Kahsai’s case.
Photo: Diego Lozano
Kahsai, who was awaiting trial for robbing multiple Circle K convenience stores, was known to local voter advocates because of his organizing work. Hearing about his difficulty voting in 2018, they got together and pressured city officials to make sure that he received a ballot for last year’s special runoff election for the mayor of Phoenix.
This is how jail voting works in many states: When it happens, it’s often because of committed individuals, either from advocacy groups or within local sheriff’s or county registrars’ offices.
Kahsai said he still felt ecstatic.
“Because I knew that would likely be my first, and probably last, chance to vote for a really long time,’” Kahsai said in an interview with The Intercept inside Lewis prison, where he is currently incarcerated. “I got to use my voice and opinion while I was locked up. You know how empowered that makes you feel, when everything around you tells you that you’re not in control of the situation?”
“I got to use my voice and opinion while I was locked up. You know how empowered that makes you feel, when everything around you tells you that you’re not in control of the situation?”
Kahsai was convicted of a felony sentence two months later and lost his right to the ballot.
Other jurisdictions, like Illinois and Washington, D.C., have made an effort to reach people like Kahsai and seen their voter turnout increase.
“Once opportunities are available, people take advantage of them,” Paikowsky said. “When you invest resources into the jail — and these resources don’t have to be significant — you see that more people vote.”
Changing Arizona
The Intercept contacted the sheriffs’ offices in all 15 Arizona counties about their plans for Election Day. Of the eight that responded, only two, Gila and Yuma, had something of a plan for ensuring detainees were aware of their right to vote. The counties will put up educational posters and flyers and facilitate voting for people who enter the jail 11 days or less before the election — the deadline to request an absentee ballot in Arizona. Two other counties tell detainees about their right to vote during the intake process.
It’s this patchwork that motivated the coalition to form in 2018. They resolved to start with Maricopa County, the fourth-largest county in the nation and where all eight of the people who voted during the 2018 midterms hailed from.
Last August, the coalition began meeting regularly with the county recorder’s office, who in turn said it was communicating with the sheriff’s office to develop a system before Arizona’s primary the following March.
By November, the coalition had drafted a three-page policy of procedures to ensure the rights of incarcerated voters. The plan, approved by the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office and reviewed by The Intercept, provides a process for every aspect of in-jail voting — from voter registration, to educating inmates about their right to vote, to the casting and receiving of ballots by mail.
It would resolve the issue of mail-in ballots not arriving, as in Kahsai’s case, by having Maricopa jails count all official election-related mail as “legal mail.” It also included a provision for a special election board to facilitate the voting process for people who enter the jail system after the absentee ballot cutoff.
“Our goal is to have the procedures in place in Maricopa County, to pilot it, by the presidential primary election,” Carmack told The Intercept in January. “And by November, we want to have all the counties have a procedure.”
With the approval of the proposal by the recorder’s office, all that remained was for the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, now led by Democratic Sheriff Paul Penzone, to implement the policies in the jails: to hang posters and make announcements alerting voters of upcoming elections and their rights, begin facilitating monthly voter registration and absentee voting education visits from the recorder’s office, and in the 11 days before the election, inform voters of their right to a special election board.
But the coalition said its December meeting with the sheriff’s office to check in on its progress was rescheduled. And rescheduled again in January. Finally, in February, the group had a meeting with Tommy McKone, director of government and external affairs for the sheriff’s office.
McKone told the coalition that it would not be possible for the sheriff’s office to turn this around “on such short notice,” Gulotta recalled. That made no sense to him, after three months of meetings with the recorder’s office, which was supposedly in talks with the sheriff. “They acted like it was the first time that they had ever seen them. Or heard of them,” he said.
Kathren Coleman, deputy recorder for communications for the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office, maintained that her office communicated with the sheriff’s office throughout the process. “The Recorder’s Office has worked with detainee-voting advocates, the formerly detained, and public defenders through a coalition-style group to determine the resources needed to provide a program serving jail voters,” Coleman added.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment on the meeting with the coalition or on the proposed reforms to the jail voting process. Penzone declined requests for an interview.
A global pandemic might not have been on county officials’ minds a few months ago, but jail voting should have been.
“I know this is very general, but this is something that MCSO has done for many years and continues to do, which is make ballots available to all inmates who request to vote,” said Norma Gutierrez-Deorta, the office’s director of public information, in an emailed statement. “All inmates are granted the opportunity to practice their constitutional right to vote. We will continue to comply with all requirements of Arizona’s election laws.”
As elected officials, sheriffs are tasked with facilitating voting for the jail population in their care, even during election cycles when their own name may be on the ballot.
Penzone will be on the ballot in November, running against Arpaio; so will Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, who is also a Democrat.
“The thing they have to be careful of,” said Paul Bentz, longtime political pollster in the state and senior vice president of research and strategy at HighGround, “is being attacked for wanting to get these individuals the right to vote so they can vote for them. The county still leans Republican right now. The demographics are changing some, but I think this’ll be a high turnout election. That’s the other thing Penzone is being very mindful of — he has to make sure he’s doing things that appeal to that Republican base. This doesn’t seem like one of them.”
“I’m sure that’s part of the reason why the sheriff’s office doesn’t seem to be at least engaging on it at this point,” he added.
On Tuesday, the coalition — and jail voters — will be back to where they were before: practicing ad hoc advocacy to help eligible voters who try to cast their ballot in the primary. They don’t know how successful that will be, or if people who got to jail in the last 11 days will be allowed to vote at all. The county is mailing ballots to all registered Democratic voters in light of the coronavirus threat, but those ballots likely won’t reach people who have just entered the system. A global pandemic might not have been on county officials’ minds a few months ago, but jail voting should have been, coalition members noted.
“It’s frustrating to have initiated a conversation of that far ahead of the election, and to be here in March of 2020 and still not have accomplished anything meaningful,” said Gulotta. “The number of meetings we had, the number of people who were at the table … the fact that they haven’t actually done anything with that seems to be a huge waste.”