Wall Street Journal 08_04_2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Wednesday, April 8, 2020 |A

U.S. NEWS

Democratic National Conven-

tion in August, the traditional

180 polling places were re-

duced to five.

“There are massive, multi-

hour lines in Milwaukee,” said

Ben Wikler, the state’s Demo-

cratic Party chairman. “There’s

also just a huge amount of fear

and confusion and anger across

the state.”

Mr. Wikler said election offi-

cials estimated that 50,

people might try to vote in

person in Milwaukee alone.

“That means 10,000 per polling

place,” he said.

Vote totals won’t be re-

leased until April 13, a date af-

firmed by a court ruling that

was meant to give voters more

time to return absentee ballots

amid the crisis.

Voters learned late Monday

that they needed to mail their

absentee ballots by the end of

Tuesday if they want them to

count, following a last-minute

court ruling.

Asked Tuesday at the White

House about the challenges of

holding an election during the

crisis, President Trump said it

was “crazy” to allow a week for

absentee ballots to come in af-

ter an election. “Mail ballots

are a very dangerous thing for

this country,” he said

“They’re fraudulent in many

cases,” Mr. Trump said.

Studies show that absentee

voter fraud is extremely rare,

and states take various mea-

sures to guard against it.

Polling in the state suggests

former Vice President Joe Bi-

den entered the balloting with

a sizable lead over Sen. Bernie

Sanders of Vermont. If Mr. Bi-

den is deemed the winner, it

could provide an added nudge

to push Mr. Sanders from a

contest where he has slim

chances to win, given his dele-

gate deficit.

The pandemic has injected

added uncertainty into the

summer and fall campaign,

with potentially altered voter

turnout and brewing confron-

tations over changes to voting

practices that could shift the

outcome of the election.

“I suspect we’ll see both

parties encourage their sup-

porters to vote absentee this

fall in order to bank as many

votes as possible in case the

pandemic is still with us or re-

surges in November,” said Da-

vid Hopkins, a political-science

professor at Boston College.

Wisconsin’s Republican-con-

trolled Legislature rebuffed

proposals by Democratic Gov.

Tony Evers to switch to an all-

mail election or reschedule the

election to June. Mr. Evers

criticized the state Legislature

for not taking action and called

the court decisions backing the

Republicans disappointing.

Andrew Hitt, chairman of

the Wisconsin GOP, criticized

Democrats for the court activ-

ity and last-minute actions.

Voters headed to Wiscon-
sin’s polls Tuesday, many in
masks and gloves to guard
against the new coronavirus, in
an election that offered a win-
dow into the logistical and po-
litical challenges that could lie
ahead for November’s presi-
dential balloting should the
pandemic linger until then.
Chaos surrounded the final
days before the state’s voters
ventured out to a significantly
reduced number of polling
places, following a dispute be-
tween Republicans who wanted
to hold the vote and Democrats
who wanted to postpone the
vote or extend absentee ballot-
ing.
Court challenges went all
the way to the U.S. Supreme
Court, which ruled in favor of
the Republican-led state Legis-
lature. More than a dozen
states have postponed or oth-
erwise extended their contests
because of the coronavirus cri-
sis.
Mark Ketterhagen, a school
principal, said he stood in line
for an hour and a half at a poll-
ing location in a Milwaukee
high school. Many voters were
wearing masks or cloth cover-
ings, he said, and most were
following social-distancing
guidelines.
But there was also some
tension. “Someone touched
someone else in line, and they
started screaming at each
other,” said Mr. Ketterhagen,
who wore a mask to vote and
noticed others trying to sell
masks and hand sanitizer out-
side his polling place.
Wisconsin’s election plans
included help from roughly
2,500 non-uniformed members

of the National Guard, over a
million disposable pens and
specific social-distancing pro-
tocols. The troops were called
out after thousands of election
workers said they wouldn’t
cover their shifts because of
the coronavirus crisis.
In Milwaukee, the state’s
largest city and home to the

BYJOHNMCCORMICK
ANDALEXACORSE

Wisconsin

Signals Risk

In November

DETROIT—Detroit, the cen-

ter of one of the worst corona-

virus outbreaks in the country,

is forecast by public officials

to hit its peak of new cases

this week. Its neighborhoods

of poverty and populations

with poor health outcomes are

compounding the outbreak’s

ferocity.

In many ways, the Motor

City might seem like an un-

likely hot spot. It lacks the

population density of other

major U.S. cities and, with

fewer public transit options,

residents are heavily reliant on

the automobile to get around.

Some health experts say De-

troit’s busy international air-

port, which connects the re-

gion’s auto industry to other

global car-manufacturing hubs,

such as those in China and

northern Italy, might have con-

tributed to the virus arriving

here early. Detroit’s auto mak-

ers have factories in both

places. It is also harder for

manufacturing workers to

work from home.

Poverty, lack of access to

health care and other basic

needs, and the prevalence of

poor health conditions could

all contribute to the severity of

the outbreak in the city and

surrounding counties, say

health experts and health-care

workers.

Abdul El-Sayed, the city’s

former health director, said

the severity of the virus is de-

termined by the people who

become infected and their en-

vironment. “The story is about

the host and the environment,

and the environment here has

been beating up on the hosts

for a long time,” Dr. El-Sayed

said.

As of Tuesday, the state had

recorded nearly 19,000 posi-

tive cases and 845 deaths,

with nearly 90% of the fatali-

ties occurring in the Detroit

metro area, according to state

figures. There are about 4.

million people in metro Detroit

and around 673,000 in the city

limits.

The outbreak has been par-

ticularly lethal for the state’s

black residents, who make up

40% of Michigan’s reported

deaths but only 14% of the

state’s total population, ac-

cording to state and federal

data. White people make up

29% of the state’s reported

deaths, while the racial identi-

ties of 25% weren’t reported.

Virus-related deaths in the

Detroit area have quickly out-

paced everywhere else in the

country but New York and New

Jersey, according to data from

the Covid Tracking Project.

“I can tell you without a

doubt, it’s going to get worse

before it gets better,” said De-

nise Fair, the city’s chief pub-

lic-health officer.

To prepare, the city’s con-

vention center—long home to

the Detroit auto show, which

was recently canceled for

June—is being converted into

a 1,000-bed field hospital for

virus-stricken patients.

With many in the city lack-

ing health insurance and ac-

cess to health care, the preva-

lence of underlying health

conditions, such as diabetes,

asthma and heart problems, is

much higher here than else-

where in the country. That

makes for a population more

vulnerable to getting sicker

from the virus, doctors and

public-health officials say.

The city recently said it

would start using new tests

that deliver results within 15

minutes. It is also participat-

ing in a treatment experiment

that aims to use hydroxychlo-

roquine, an antimalarial drug,

to prevent infections among

first responders, Mayor Mike

Duggan said.

“There is no evidence that

this spreads more quickly

among the poor than the

wealthy,” he said, pushing

back against the idea that the

city’s poverty is exacerbating

the virus.

“It seems like the situation

just blew up all of sudden,” said

J. Drew Sheard, a minister in

Detroit, whose elderly parents

have been hospitalized after

testing positive for the virus.

Central City Integrated

Health, a primary-care clinic

near downtown, has struggled

to provide protective gear for

staff, with suppliers focusing

on orders from larger hospi-

tals. The dearth has left the

clinic to treat most patients

virtually. The problem is that

not all patients have regular

access to phones and comput-

ers, said Kimberly Farrow,

chief executive of Central City

Integrated Health. “We’ve had

a major breakdown of our sys-

tem.”

She had one asthmatic pa-

tient go to the hospital com-

plaining of symptoms but was

turned away because her case

wasn’t deemed severe enough

for a hospital bed. When Dr.

Farrow tried to help her pa-

tient by phone, the woman’s

prepaid cellphone minutes had

run out.

BYBENFOLDY

In Detroit, Poverty Deepens Pain

As Virus Cases Are Poised to Peak

There were few cars on Jefferson Avenue and a single passenger on a bus Monday in Detroit during a normally busy morning rush hour.

EMILY ROSE BENNETT FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2)

wild adults and expanding ar-

eas where the animals are re-

leased. The wolves now mostly

inhabit a mountainous region

on the border of Arizona and

New Mexico, living in 42 dif-

ferent packs.

“This is really encouraging

news at a time when we all

need some encouraging news,”

said Bryan Bird, Southwest

program director for Defenders

of Wildlife, an environmental

advocacy group.

But ranchers in the region

say the wolves have decimated

their herds, taking down hun-

dreds of calves and other live-

stock over the past two decades.

“They have had a cata-

strophic impact on ranchers in

the wolf recovery zone,” said

Caren Cowan, executive direc-

tor of the New Mexico Cattle

Growers’ Association.

Ms. Cowan and other advo-

cates for ranchers have ar-

gued for limited hunts of the

wolves and higher payments

by the federal government for

the loss of a cow or calf.

“If they could hunt the

wolf, it would change their be-

havior,” Ms. Cowan said. But

environmentalists say the

Mexican gray wolf numbers

remain far too low for that.

Mr. Bird said environmen-

talists have worked with

ranchers to come up with tech-

niques to deter wolves, such as

having hired riders chase them

off—but Ms. Cowan said many

of those are ineffective.

“Generally, the Mexican

gray wolf has become identity

politics,” Mr. Bird said. “You

get the entrenched camps on

both sides of the issue.”

The conflict reflects the ten-

sions that have played out in the

northern Rocky Mountains since

a related species, gray wolves,

was reintroduced there in 1995.

The predator’s population has

grown to more than 1,500, ex-

panded their range across much

of the Pacific Northwest and

wreaked so much damage to

livestock that hunting seasons

have been opened in states in-

cluding Idaho and Wyoming.

Even with their resurgence,

the Mexican gray wolves are

in a far more tenuous position,

wildlife biologists say. One

threat they face is inbreeding,

Mr. Bird said. He and other ad-

vocates are pushing for federal

authorities to relocate the

wolves in more dispersed loca-

tions, such as northern Ari-

zona and the southern Rockies

of New Mexico.

The Mexican gray wolf has
rebounded to its highest num-
bers in the American South-
west since its near extinction
a half-century ago—to the de-
light of environmentalists but
angst of some ranchers.
Considered the most endan-
gered of the world’s wolf spe-
cies, the Mexican gray wolf
disappeared from its native
habitat in the southwestern
U.S. and northern Mexico in
the 1970s due largely to hunt-
ing and trapping. It remained
out of the wild until 1998,
when 11 wolves raised under a
captive breeding program run
by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service were released in the
mountains of eastern Arizona.
Since then, the Mexican gray
wolf has been on an upward
trajectory—reaching a record
163 in the Southwest in 2019,
24% higher than the previous
year and the 10th straight year
of increases, according to the
Mexican Wolf Interagency Field
Team, a task force of various
government agencies.
Federal wildlife officials say
the higher numbers come after
recovery efforts that have in-
cluded placing captive-born
pups in dens to be raised by

BYJIMCARLTON

Wolf Species Rebounds in Southwest

The Mexican gray wolf was near extinction in the 1970s.

JEFF ROBERSON/ASSOCIATED PRESS

the protocol, based on a single

dose of the barbiturate pento-

barbital, diverged too greatly

from execution procedures

used in the relevant states.

By a 2-1 vote, the U.S. Court

of Appeals for the District of

Columbia Circuit concluded

the federal protocol met con-

gressional requirements.

“From the moment it an-

nounced the protocol on July

25, 2019, the government has

rushed the process in order to

carry out executions without

meaningful judicial review of

the legality and constitutional-

ity of the new execution proce-

dures,” said Cate Stetson, an

attorney for one of the inmates.

A Justice Department

spokeswoman couldn’t be

reached to comment.

Tuesday’s decision didn’t

resolve all impediments to the

executions, however. The D.C.

Circuit asked the district court

to consider the inmates’ claims

that the use of pentobarbital

would violate the Food, Drug

and Cosmetic Act and the Con-

trolled Substances Act.

Ms. Stetson suggested an ap-

peal to the full D.C. Circuit was

possible, and the matter could

land before the Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON—An appellate

court said the Trump adminis-

tration’s planned protocol for

executing men on the federal

government’s death row was le-

gally acceptable, but additional

legal questions, along with a

coronavirus emergency that has

led several states to suspend ex-

ecutions, left unclear when the

inmates might be put to death.

In November, a federal dis-

trict court in Washington

blocked the first executions

scheduled by the Justice De-

partment after a 16-year hiatus,

finding the protocol approved

in July by Attorney General

William Barr didn’t comply with

the Federal Death Penalty Act.

The 1994 law requires that

federal executions be con-

ducted “in the manner pre-

scribed by the law of the State

in which the sentence is im-

posed,” or an alternate state

selected by the Justice Depart-

ment if the inmate was con-

victed in a jurisdiction that has

abolished capital punishment.

Agreeing with the four in-

mates who had been sched-

uled to die beginning in De-

cember 2019, the judge found

BYJESSBRAVIN

Appeals Court Allows

Execution Procedure

Lawmakers rebuffed

Gov. Tony Evers’s bid

for an all-mail or

rescheduled election.