The Washignton Post - 04.04.2020

A6 eZ re the washington post.saturday, april 4 , 2020

the coronavirus pandemic

that Governor Evers has flip- flopped on the very question that we have been discussing over the past month.” On Thursday, a federal judge declined to postpone the election, saying it was impossible to prove before Election Day that the pandemic infringes on voting rights, although he extended the deadline for absentee ballots. Evers now wants to push that deadline even further, to May 26. Republicans have argued that canceling the election on such short notice would sow chaos, while Democrats have accused them of wanting to capitalize on low turnout to score a win in a hotly contested state Supreme Court race. And then there are the presidential campaigns — wary of urg- ing supporters to risk their health by gathering at p olling places, but eager to have their support if they do. The result is that former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Ber- nie Sanders (I-Vt.) are in essence conducting a ghost campaign in Wisconsin, devoid of the tradi- tional elements of a presidential contest like rallies and town halls, and all but disappearing from Facebook feeds and television screens. “It’s all just very eerie,” said Randy Bryce, a state co-chairman of the Sanders campaign, who was a congressional candidate in

“There’s that bonding in
crowds, that excitement. And

that’s just not there. It doesn’t have the feel of the most important election of my lifetime just around the corner.” Earlier this week, Sanders urged Wisconsin to postpone the primary, while Biden told report- ers that the question was “for the Wisconsin courts and folks to decide.” With no sign that the impact of the coronavirus will subside any- time soon, Wisconsin’s descent into partisan fighting, legal ac- tion, health fears and general confusion is offering a preview of what could come in other states. As of Friday, at least 16 states plus Puerto Rico had postponed their primaries or converted them to mail-only balloting, leav- ing election officials scrambling to prepare for those altered primaries as well as November’s general election. In Wisconsin, the prospect of chaos reached a fever pitch in recent days, as public health officials warned that the virus was expected to spread rapidly across the state in the first two weeks of April. Last week, Evers asked law- makers to mail ballots to every registered voter in the state, ex- tend the deadline to register and postpone the deadline to return completed ballots. They declined to do any of that and did not even contemplate outright postpone- ment, even as Evers and health officials ordered state residents to

shelter in place. In the meantime, thousands of poll workers began canceling plans to work on Election Day, and by Wednesday, 111 cities and towns had reported to Wisconsin election officials that they lacked sufficient workers to open a sin- gle polling location. The state’s largest city, Milwaukee, reported Friday that it would open five polling places instead of the usual 180. Some localities planned to of- fer drive-up voting to preserve social distancing rules. A state plane was used to fly cleaning supplies to remote cor- ners of Wisconsin, including two liters of 170-proof sanitizer made by local distilleries for each polling location. Still, some pointed to the heavy use of mail-in ballots as evidence that the crush on Election Day could be limited. As of Friday, the Wisconsin Elections Commission reported that it had sent out nearly 1.2 million absentee ballots and had more than 561,000 ballots returned. In 2 016, just over 1 million people voted in the Democratic primary. If the election does proceed Tuesday but does not go w ell, that could prompt other states to push their contests even later, further prolonging the Democratic quest to settle on a nominee who can focus solely on President Trump. That, in turn, could add to the

pressure on Sanders to drop out and allow the party to coalesce around Biden, who has a nearly insurmountable delegate lead. Wisconsin is a crucial test for Democrats, a state where their hopes in the 2020 general election could live or die, given Trump’s narrow win there in

It i s where they hope to hold
their convention — if they are
able to hold it at all, after post-
poning it recently from July to
August.
And Wisconsin is now the only
state for at least a month still
holding in-person voting. Its 84
delegates make it the biggest
prize until April 28, when mail-in
ballot voting will be completed in
Ohio.
Another comfortable win by
Biden could put Sanders in a
difficult spot, as many Democrats
are eager to bring the primary
contest to an end. A survey from
Marquette Law School released
Wednesday showed Biden at-
tracting 62 percent of likely vot-
ers in Wisconsin, compared with
34 percent for Sanders.
Biden on Thursday suggested
that there were discussions be-
tween the two campaigns that
could result in Sanders withdraw-
ing.
“I have to be very blunt with
you: Our staffs have been talking,
Bernie’s staff and mine,” t he for-
mer vice president said during an
online fundraiser. “I don’t know
where it’s going to go. But I have

BY AMY GARDNER AND MATT VISER

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on
Friday abruptly reversed course
and urged a delay of the state’s
Tuesday primary, declaring the
coronavirus too great a health
risk and summoning the state
legislature for a special session
Saturday to consider a plan to
cancel in-person voting and ex-
tend the deadline for mail-in bal-
lots.
The surprise announcement
threw election preparations into
further chaos amid a sprint by
state and local officials to stock
up on sanitizing supplies and
consolidate voting locations be-
cause of a mass shortage of poll
workers. Republican leaders
quickly rejected Evers’s call, leav-
ing the primary in a shaky state.
The move turned the nation’s
attention to what may be a test
case of how — and how not — to
manage democracy during a
global pandemic. As t he coronavi-
rus has torn apart the fabric of
daily life, it has also upended the
political landscape, injected even
more uncertainty into an already
tumultuous campaign and forced
election administrators across
the country to rethink how to
allow voting to proceed fairly and
safely.
At the time of Evers’s an-
nouncement, Wisconsin was the
only one of 11 states originally
scheduled to hold contests in
April that had not postponed or
dramatically altered voting amid
the pandemic. But the states that
chose to delay may have only put
off the day of reckoning when
they, too, must decide how to
balance democracy and public
health.
“If, as elected officials, we’re
going to expect the people of our
state to make sacrifices to keep all
of us safe, then by golly, we’d
better be willing do our part, too,”
Evers said in a video posted on
Facebook. “So today I announced
that I am calling the legislature
into a special session to do its part
— just as all of us are — to help
keep our neighbors, our families
and our communities safe.”
Wisconsin’s Republican-con-
trolled legislature, not Evers,
holds the power to reschedule the
election, and GOP leaders have
steadfastly opposed doing so. But
Evers, a Democrat, has been criti-
cized by some in his own party f or
not forcing the issue more aggres-
sively.
“Some eye-rolling going on
here,” Scott McDonell, the clerk of
Dane County, home of the state
capital, Madison, said after
Evers’s announcement. “Two
weeks late.”
Ye t it was unclear if Evers
would succeed, since he is certain
to face steep opposition from
Republicans during Saturday’s
special session of the legislature.
“In elections during uncertain
times, it’s important that no one
questions the process,” GOP legis-
lative leaders Robin Vos and Scott
Fitzgerald said in a statement.
“That’s why it’s so disappointing

enormous respect for him.... Whether Bernie gets out or stays in remains to be seen.” The Sanders and Biden campaigns have been forced to rely heavily on digital operations that are inherently impersonal, seek- ing to motivate people through a screen and hoping that volunteers who want to be part of a movement will be engaged when sitting at home. The Sanders campaign once had a headquarters in Milwaukee plus four field offices in the state. Now, the 54 campaign staffers from those offices are all working remotely, spread across several time zones across the country. “A s a state director I wasn’t anticipating my main place of operation being in my parents’ basement in Colorado,” s aid Sean Ward, who has been coordinating the Sanders campaign in Wiscon- sin. “But that’s where we are.” Neither Biden nor Sanders has spent a dime on television or radio ads in Wisconsin, even while some $4.2 million in ads have aired on a state Supreme Court race, according to data sup- plied to The Washington Post by the tracking firm Advertising An- alytics. The campaigns are doing their best to grapple with the new reality. Sanders staffers say they have made nearly 368,000 phone calls and connected with nearly 4,200 voters through their app. The campaign has hosted eight virtual house parties and three student-led organizing events, and has had more than 1, volunteers making calls to voters in Wisconsin. Still, some Sanders supporters are concerned about whether he can draw support around college campuses at a time when classes have been canceled and students have returned home, in some cases to out-of-state locations. Biden’s c ampaign has been tex- ting voters and has sought to roll out attention-grabbing endorse- ments. The campaign held a tele-town hall with Rep. Cedric L. Rich- mond (D-La.), a prominent Afri- can American congressman and a Biden campaign co-chair. Biden also held a recent “ virtual happy hour” targeting voters in Madi- son. “What is normal going to be like in future elections coming up?” Bryce said. “Nobody knows.” Kim Butler, chairwoman of the Polk County Democratic Party, said she was voting for Sanders to give him leverage to push Biden further to the left. Conceding that there is less excitement around Sanders’s candidacy this time around, she said she may send texts and make some calls on his behalf before Tuesday’s vote. “I think many people are just hunkered down and not really excited for GOTV,” said Butler, referring to get-out-the-vote ef- forts. “People are concerned about their health, their family and getting food.” [email protected] [email protected]

In reversal, Wisconsin governor urges delay of primary

Morry Gash/associated press Workers stationed outside Milwaukee’s municipal building Monday were ready to take ballots during drive-up early voting.

BY PAUL SONNE, DAN LAMOTHE AND ALEX HORTON

Videos that emerged on social
media showed crew members of
the USS Theodore Roosevelt air-
craft carrier cheering their cap-
tain in a walloping send-off, after
the Navy removed him Thursday
for speaking up in a leaked letter
to his superiors about w hat he s aw
as insufficient measures to con-
tain a coronavirus outbreak
aboard the vessel.
Footage posted on Facebook
and Twitterappears to show hun-
dreds of service members crowd-
ing into a hangar around Capt.
Brett Crozier as he makes his way
off the vessel over a gangway to
Guam, a backpack slung over his
shoulder. The sailors chant “Cap-
tain Crozier!” over and over, clap-
ping and cheering. In one of the
videos, a voice in the background
says: “And that’s how you send out
one of the greatest captains you
ever had!”
In one of the videos, Crozier
stands a few feet from his crew,
awash in applause as a vehicle
waits to take him away. He waves
and salutes, then turns to walk
away a lone.
The video footage not only dem-
onstrated the support for Crozier
aboard the aircraft carrier but a lso
showed what appeared to be hun-
dreds of sailors gathering closely
in a large group — the sort of
environment that health officials
have warned can lead to rapid
transmission of the virus.

The groundswell of support for Crozier — which e xtended to comments from crew members and their families — came as the latest episode in a drama over the coronavirus outbreak on the Nimitz- class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The saga has shined a harsh spotlight on Pentagon leadership accused of failing to act swiftly a nd a ggressively e nough to stop a rapid spread of disease among the carrier’s nearly 5,000- person crew, accusations that top Pentagon o fficials deny. The controversy also risked be- coming increasingly political, as Democratic senators and con- gressmen called for a Pentagon inspector general investigation into Crozier’s firing and former vice president Joe Biden, Presi- dent Trump’s likely rival in the November election, went public with support for the ousted commanding o fficer. In a letter to senior officials on Monday, subsequently leaked by an anonymous source to the San Francisco Chronicle, Crozier asked that 90 percent of the ship’s crew be moved into isolation for two weeks on Guam, warning that if the leadership didn’t take such extraordinary measures, “we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.” The Pentagon has rejected the type of full-scale evacuation Cro- zier sought, saying the ship must remain ready at any time and about 1,000 service members must be aboard to safeguard the ship and its weapons. The situa-

tion aboard the Roo sevelt is by far the military’s largest coronavirus outbreak to date. U.S. aircraft carriers, floating cities powered by nuclear reac- tors, are symbols of the nation’s global projection. The Navy has 11 active carriers in its inventory. T he consequences of taking o ne offline — especially a ship assigned to patrol the Pacific as a check on China’s military power — would be enormous, but Crozier argued it was necessary to protect the health of his crew. As of Friday, 41 percent of the Roosevelt crew had been tested for c ovid-19, w ith 137 coming back positive, the Navy said. Four hun- dred more sailors who tested neg- ative were slated to move into Guam hotels for quarantine on Friday evening, bringing the total of those moved to 576. There have been zero h ospitalizations. Comments from acting Navy secretary Thomas Modly to the crew during his announcement of Crozier’s dismissal on Thursday were posted to the ship’s official Facebook page early Friday. “I am entirely convinced that your Commanding Officer loves you, and that he had you at the center of his heart and mind in every decision that he has made,” Modly said. “I also know that you have great affection, and love, for him as well. But it is my responsibility to ensure that his love and concern for you is matched, if not exceeded by, his sober and profes- sional j udgment u nder p ressure.” Modly said Thursday that Cro-

zier had shown “poor judgment” in sending his letter by e mail to 20 or 30 p eople. Modly d idn’t d irectly accuse C rozier of leaking t he letter to the San Francisco Chronicle b ut noted it appeared in the captain’s hometown newspaper. The Navy is conducting an internal investigation into the matter. Modly argued that Crozier’s l et- ter u ndermined more senior Navy leaders and could have embold- ened adversaries of the United States in the Pacific region. H e said the decision to remove Crozier was his, and that he received no pressure from t he White House on the i ssue. Speaking t o the p ress on Friday, Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman said that Defense Secre- tary Mark T. Esper had supported Modly’s decision “based on the secretary of the Navy... inform- ing the s ecretary o f defense that he had lost confidence in the captain.” It i sn’t y et clear what specifical- ly led Crozier to write and send the letter. Crozier was relieved of his duties b ut remains a captain in the Navy. He could not be reached for comment. By the time Crozier’s letter was written, the Navy had already made public the fact o f a coronavirus outbreak on the Roosevelt, confirming publicly on March 24 that three sailors had tested positive and been quarantined. What the letter r evealed, w hen it leaked, was apparent dissatisfaction on the carrier with the pace at which the Navy was removing sailors

Carrier crew gives captain a warm send-o≠

from the ship and taking other measures. It captured concerns that family members of sailors on the ship had b een expressing for days. “I thought his letter touched on all the points that us, as family members, were feeling,” said the mother of a sailor on the vessel who has since tested positive for coronavirus. More broadly, family members of Roosevelt sailors, speaking on the condition of anonymity be- cause of concerns about retalia- tion against their sailors, have ex- pressed support for C rozier. The father o f one sailor told The Washington Post that he thinks the crew understands the decision, b ut the video of sailors chant- ing his name as he departed “speaks loudly of how much they appreciate what a true Navy commanding o fficer is all about.” The bond between ship com- manders and crew i s distinct f rom every other military command,

fused at t he “ elemental level” i n an understanding o f the u nique power and responsibility a skipper wields, said Bryan McGrath, a former commander of a Navy de- stroyer. S o the emotional outpouring among crew and their families was not unprecedented, McGrath said, and Crozier is not the first commander who has received such a send-off. But the feelings were obvious, he said. McGrath, n ow a d efense consul- tant, said it was apparent both Crozier and Navy leaders believed they were d oing the r ight t hing. “I think both sides have a piece of right here,” McGrath said. “Cro- zier made his stand. When he wrote that letter, he almost cer- tainly knew it may end up like this.” [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Missy ryan contributed to this report.

petty officer 3rd class nicholas huynh/u.s. navy/reuters Capt. Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, addresses the crew on the ship’s flight deck in December.

The Washignton Post - 04.04.2020

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