SATURDAy, MARCH 14 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST eZ m2 A
Politics & the Nation
BY TARA BAHRAMPOURThe Republican National Com-
mittee s aid Thursday that it would
stop using the word “census” on
mail solicitations and digital ad-
vertising, a practice Democratic
lawmakers have called deceptive,
especially during a decennial cen-
sus year.
In a letter dated March 12, the
RNC’s chief counsel, J. Justin Rie-
mer, denied that the use of the
term “census” was unlawful or
misleading but agreed not to con-
tinue using it.
“The clear and c onspicuous dis-
claimer plainly indicates that the
mailing is ‘Paid for b y the Republi-
can National Committee,’ (and)
includes all other language re-
quired by law.”
However, it said the RNC would
“use words other than ‘census’ in
future RNC mailings and digital
advertising.”
The RNC has sent out surveys
or solicitations with the word
“census” in the title since at least
- One dated Feb. 12, 2 020, and
titled “Official 2020 Congressio-
nal District Census,” asked recipi-
ents to weigh in on issues from
President Trump’s impeachment
to the role of the m edia to adding a
citizenship question to the census.
In a letter last week to RNC
Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel,
House Oversight and Reform
Committee Chairwoman Carolyn
B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) a nd three o th-
er Democratic lawmakers called
upon the organization to stop
sending out such mailers, refer-
ring to a law passed after similar
material was sent out around the
2010 census.
“The RNC should not invoke
the official U.S. Census as a means
to confuse and deceive recipients
of the mailer into opening it,
thinking they are complying with
their civic duty,” the letter said.
Oversight committee members
had previously pressed Census
Bureau Director Steven Dilling-
ham to investigate the RNC mail-
ers.
Maloney’s l etter also referred to
Trump campaign ads posted on
Facebook that mimicked the cen-
sus; Facebook removed the ads
after an outcry, saying they violat-
ed their policy against misleading
census references. Facebook had
vowed in December to remove
content that misleads people
about the U.S. census; the Census
Bureau is also working with
Google and Twitter to block falsecensus material.
The RNC letter was dated the
same day Maloney and Rep. Anna
G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) introduced
two bills prohibiting deceptive
census mailings.
Postcards from the Census Bu-
reau were s ent to all h ouseholds in
the country this week, inviting
recipients to respond to the de-
cennial c ensus online, by phone or
by mail. Data from the 2020 Cen-
sus will determine $1.5 trillion
annually in federal funding, along
with congressional apportion-
ment a nd redistricting.
“I’m pleased the Republican
Party agreed to stop producing
and distributing f ake Census com-
munications that could harm the
accuracy of t he 2020 Census,” Ma-
loney said Friday. “ I hope t he RNC
will follow through with its com-
mitment and take all the neces-
sary steps to avoid further inter-
ference with the census.”
[email protected]RNC agrees to stop using the word
‘census’ in mailers, online advertising
BY ELISE VIEBECK
AND ISAAC STANLEY-BECKERThe rapid spread of the novel
coronavirus across the United
States put the outbreak on a colli-
sion course with the presidential
primaries, threatening to disrupt
the process at a pivotal moment
for Democrats as they select their
nominee.
Louisiana announced Friday
that it would d elay its White House
primaries from April 4 to June 20,
becoming the first state to re-
schedule because of covid-19.
Shortly after, the four states set to
vote Tuesday said jointly that their
contests would proceed as
planned, referring to guidance
from public health officials who
have declared voting safe if best
practices are followed.
But a rush of developments
heightened pressure on elections
officials a lready struggling to min-
imize risks to voters and injected a
sense of deep uncertainty about
how the 2020 race will unfold
amid t he growing pandemic.
By the end of the week, the
presidential campaigns had gone
virtual: Former vice president Joe
Biden invited voters in Illinois to a
videoconference town hall Friday,
while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
scheduled daily news conferences
from Burlington, Vt., and Presi-
dent Trump temporarily suspend-
ed his rallies.
As the president declared a na-
tional state of emergency Friday,
colleges shuttered and cities
across the country banned large
gatherings, there was building
worry about the outbreak’s i mpact
on the voting process. The United
States currently has 2 ,151 corona-
virus cases, with 4 8 deaths.
Fear about exposure was ex-
pected to lower in-person turnout
for Tuesday’s contests in Arizona,
Florida, Illinois and Ohio, when
577 delegates are up for grabs — a
potential risk for Biden as h e seeks
to lock up the D emocratic nomina-
tion. The former vice president has
had strong support from older vot-
ers, who are more at risk to suffer
serious health issues if they con-
tract covid-19.
“We’ve just never had a situa-
tion like this before,” said Michael
McDonald, a political scientist at
the University of Florida, who s aid
Biden could suffer if seniors stay
home, while Sanders could see his
support diminish i f students b eing
sent home from college campuses
are unable to participate.
“It’s so hard t o predict,” h e said.
The joint statement from the
chief elections officials in the four
states voting Tuesday came amid
worries that fears about the coro-
navirus would keep people from
showing up at t he polls.
The statement n oted that v oting
involves “people from a nearby
community c oming i nto and out of
the building for a short duration,”
as opposed to the kinds of large
gatherings that are n ow banned in
many jurisdictions.
Ohio Secretary of State Frank
LaRose said it came about after
text conversations between his
chief of staff and the top aides to
Arizona Secretary of State Katie
Hobbs, Florida Secretary of State
Laurel Lee and Illinois Elections
Board Chairman Charles Scholz.
“My chief of staff was reaching
out to the other [top staffers] and
saying, ‘Hey, listen, we need to
push back on this so it doesn’t
become a disinformation thing or
a misinformation thing,’” LaRose
said.
“ This is about pushing calm,
accurate, decisive information out
there where there is too much n on-
sense churning on social media
causing people anxiety,” h e added.
S till, in local jurisdictions, elec-
tion officials struggled to keep up
with an onslaught of calls from
concerned residents and the prac-
tical demands of obtaining guid-
ance from election, public health
and other leaders at every level of
government.
“It is a difficult situation for
everyone,” said Adam Johnson,
chief deputy clerk in DuPage
County, Ill. “We are actively reach-
ing out and trying to get the infor-
mation as quickly a s people have it,
but we understand that everyone
is responding in real time to this
situation.”
Under guidance from state and
local health departments, election
officials around the country took
action this week to increase their
personnel and lower health risks,
often by moving hundreds of poll-
ing places out of nursing homes
and stockpiling supplies to disin-
fect voting equipment.
In DuPage County, officials an-
nounced Friday that volunteerswould be paid $200 rather than
$130 for Election Day and $15 per
hour instead of $10 per hour dur-
ing early voting.
In Ohio, amid a statewide cam-
paign to recruit poll workers, the
state auditor offered employees a
paid day off if they sign up.
And in Maricopa County, Ariz.,
officials took the unusual step of
preparing to mail ballots to eligi-
ble voters who were not on the
permanent early-voting list, a de-
cision that echoed recommenda-
tions from v ote-by-mail a dvocates.
But the move was blocked on Fri-
day by a superior court judge, who
ordered Maricopa County Record-
er Adrian Fontes not to mail out
the ballots a fter the state’s attorney
general, Mark Brnovich (R), filed
an emergency motion to block the
action. In the filing, the attorney
general argued that the county of-
ficial lacked authority to mail bal-
lots t o voters who had not request-
ed them, and that the move risked
“creating a swarm of illegal ballots
and immense voter confusion.”
Fontes said h e was trying to help
people fearful for their safety to
participate in the primary.
“The ballots were at the door of
the warehouse,” h e said in a n inter-
view Friday evening. “My job is to
help voters vote. Especially in a
time of a global pandemic, it’s un-
fortunate that politics intervened.”
Ta king a different approach,
Louisiana announced that the b est
way to protect public health —
including the health of its elderly
poll w orkers — w as to use a special
emergency provision in state law
to delay its primaries until the
summer.Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin
said elections were delayed in
2005 and 2008 after hurricanes.
He said his thought of postponing
the primaries h ad unanimous s up-
port in across leaders in state gov-
ernment, both Democrats and Re-
publicans.
“We spent most of yesterday
working as a team, looking for
ways to try to carry out the elec-
tion. We kept running into barrier
after barrier.... When I contacted
the governor’s office, I think that
there was some relief in us coming
to that decision,” Ardoin said at a
news conference Friday.
In addition to Louisiana’s deci-
sion, the Wyoming Democratic
Party announced that it would do
away w ith the in-person portion of
its caucuses, scheduled for April 4 ,and instead encourage voters to
participate by mail, dropping off
ballots o n March 28 and April 4.
The Nevada Democratic Party
also canceled its county conven-
tions and the state party in Iowa
postponed similar g atherings.
The prospect o f a delayed n omi-
nation process drew concern from
the Democratic campaigns.
“Our elections can be conduct-
ed safely in consultation with pub-
lic health officials,” Kate Beding-
field, Biden communications di-
rector, said in a written statement.
She encouraged people who feel
healthy, are not exhibiting symp-
toms and don’t believe they’ve
been exposed to the virus to vote
Tuesday.
Experts said t here was no risk of
the general election being post-poned. Under federal law, it must
take place on the Tuesday follow-
ing the first Monday in November.
The Constitution also mandates
that the new Congress be seated on
Jan. 3 and presidential terms be-
gin on Jan. 20.
Marc Elias, a leading Democrat-
ic attorney who specializes in vot-
ing rights, said he knew of no
special powers that would allow
Trump to change the date of a
general election, even in case of a
national e mergency.
In states with upcoming prima-
ries, local election officials a re now
racing to figure out how to miti-
gate potential health risks of cast-
ing a ballot.
In New York, a critical state
where voters will weigh in on the
presidential nominating contest
on April 28, state elections board
Co-chairman Douglas A. Kellner
said b oard officials have been coor-
dinating with Gov. Andrew M.
Cuomo’s (D) office, as well as with
legislative leaders, t o discuss alter-
native voting options.
A move to delay April’s presi-
dential primary is “possible given
the circumstances,” he said. I n the
meantime, Kellner said, some lo-
cal counties were making changes
to their absentee voting proce-
dures that exceeded their authori-
ty.
“Two counties have gone rogue
and taken it upon themselves to
take emergency actions that aren’t
authorized by l aw,” h e said.
Erie County had altered the ap-
plication form to include the novel
coronavirus as an excuse for re-
questing an absentee ballot, he
said.
Jeremy J. Zellner, an elections
commissioner in Erie County, said
it was the commissioners’ job “to
make sure people are not disen-
franchised, and we believe very
strongly we do have the authority
to do this based on the governor’s
emergency declaration and the ill-
ness provision in state election
law.”
[email protected]
isaac.stanley-
[email protected]Colby Itkowitz, Chelsea Janes and Amy
e. gardner contributed to this report.Outbreak threatens to put p residential primaries in disarray
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