BY MICHAEL BRICE-SADDLER

KLMNO

METRO

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2020. WASHINGTONPOST.COM/REGIONAL EZ RE B

JOHN KELLY’S WASHINGTON

Amid the pandemic, high

school reunion organizers

are deciding to delay,

cancel and innovate. B3

VIRGINIA

Meet the three candidates

running for two open

seats on the five-member

Arlington School Board. B5

OBITUARIES

Singer Johnny Bush’s

honky-tonk hit “Whiskey

River” became a signature

59 ° 70 ° 78 ° 69 ° song for Willie Nelson. B5

8 a.m. Noon 4 p.m. 8 p.m.

High today at

approx. 4 p.m.

78

°

Precip: 10%

Wind: SSW

6-12 mph

Two weeks before

the election, and

we’re well into the

bargaining stage

of the voting

process.

All kinds of

deals are being

made.

“I told my mom, ‘Feel free in

four years, vote for a Republican,

anyone who is reasonable,’ ”

Dave McDonnell, 44, said about

a conversation with his mother,

who is one of this election’s

pivotal voters in the swing state

of Pennsylvania.

“ ‘But just this year, this year’s

different. I just ask that you

don’t vote for Trump,’ I told her. I

think she’s under a lot of

pressure from my siblings, too,”

said McDonnell, an engineer in

Baltimore.

Amid all the get-out-and-vote

cheerleading, postcard writing

and phone banking, folks are

trying to see if they can make a

difference among the people

they know best. And they’re

being ruthless.

“I told them they can’t see

their grandkids anymore if they

vote for him,” Sheerie, a 36-year-

old mother of four in Roswell,

Ga., told me about her

desperation to break through

with her Trump-loving parents.

“I just don’t think they can hold

those views and be with the

kids.”

This is the brother-against-

brother part of the battle.

Families and friends who could

once put politics aside over

turkey and birthday cake are

now firmly cleaved. It’s

crunchtime. And some are using

everything they have to change

minds.

“Desperate times, absurdist

measures,” wrote author and

television writer David Simon, in

the bargain he is offering to his

fans on Twitter.

Simon’s famous not only for

creating and writing the

acclaimed television shows “The

Wire,” “Treme” and “The Deuce”

— his Twitter zingers are like an

award-winning micro-series, and

he’s using them in a new strategy

to sway voters.

“ If you voted Trump, or 3rd

party, or sat out 2016 and are

now willing to end vile misrule

by voting for Biden,” he wrote,

“send a photo of you in voting

SEE DVORAK ON B3

To get votes, families are cutting deals

Petula

Dvorak

BY GREGORY S. SCHNEIDER

richmond — The Civil War

itself seemed to be on trial Mon-

day in the former capital of the

Confederacy, as a circuit court

judge heard arguments in a law-

suit challenging Gov. Ralph

Northam’s e ffort to take down t he

statue of Gen. Robert E. Lee on

Monument Avenue and lawyers

debated the root causes of the

nation’s most divisive conflict.

The suit was brought by a

small group of local residents

and hinges, in part, on a deed the

state legislature accepted in 188 9

promising to protect the memori-

al forever. The state attorney

general’s office argued that the

whole case is moot because the

General Assembly adopted lan-

guage in the state budget Friday

night that sets aside money to

take down the statue and repeals

the original resolution accepting

the deed.

State Solicitor General Toby

Heytens argued that the General

Assembly’s vote is also a clear

statement of public policy, show-

SEE STATUE ON B4

Arguments heard over

Lee statue’s removal

Budget language backs

Va.’s move to take down

memorial, state s ays

BY TOM JACKMAN

U.S. Park Police Officers Ale-

jandro Amaya and Lucas Vinyard

surrendered at the Fairfax Coun-

ty jail early Monday on warrants

charging them with involuntary

manslaughter and reckless use of

a firearm in the 2017 slaying of

unarmed motorist Bijan Ghaisar.

Both officers were booked into

the jail and appeared in green

jumpsuits by videoconference for

their arraignment later Monday

morning before Fairfax Circuit

Judge Richard E. Gardiner. He

allowed both to be released on a

$10,000 personal recognizance

bond, meaning they did not have

to pay to be let go but will owe

$10,000 if they fail to appear for

SEE GHAISAR ON B4

Park Police

in Ghaisar

slaying

surrender

Two officers a rraigned

and released on bond

in m otorist’s shooting

your D.C. driver’s license or voter registration form.)

A staff member then checks to see whether the

signatures match. If there’s a discrepancy, the ballot

is sent to a manager for a second inspection.

If the manager confirms the discrepancy, the

board will contact the voter to correct the problem

before Nov. 13, the latest date the board can accept a

mail ballot that was postmarked by Election Day.

Heightened attention to the process during this

year’s polarized presidential election — fueled by the

emphasis on mail-in voting and attacks on such

ballots by President Trump and his allies — has

caused some D.C. residents to worry about how their

signature has changed over time and whether their

SEE VOTING ON B2

More than 60, 000 ballots have already been mailed

to the D.C. Board of Elections or left in a secure drop

box. Before they can be counted, each must be

inspected for a valid signature.

It’s a multitiered safeguard that will be used more

than ever before in this election, with the District

sending ballots to all voters and unprecedented

numbers expected to mail them in or drop them off

because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Signature matching, intended to confirm the

identities of voters who do not vote in person, is a

technique employed in the District and 32 states.

After the D.C. elections board receives a signed and

completed ballot, the signature is paired electronical-

ly with one on file. (Generally, it’s the signature on

Verifying a mountain of mailed ballots

Signatures are D.C.’s

primary check against

election fraud — but

some voters are

worried theirs won’t

match up

New cases in region

Through 5 p.m. Monday, 1,212 new

coronavirus cases were reported in

the District, Maryland and Virginia,

bringing the total number of cases

to 319,377.

D.C. MD. VA.

+25 +497+ 690

16,395 136,154 166,828

Coronavirus-related deaths

As of 5 p.m. Monday:

D.C. MD.* VA.

+0 +4 +24

641 4,041 3,457

* Includes probable covid-19 deaths

BY IAN SHAPIRA

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam

(D) ordered an investigation into

the culture at the Virginia Mili-

tary Institute on Monday after

Black cadets and alumni de-

scribed relentless racism at the

nation’s oldest state-supported

military college.

The governor, who graduated

in VMI’s Class of 1981, co-wrote a

letter to the college’s Board of

Visitors informing it that the

state will fund an independent

probe into the school’s treatment

of its Black students.

His action followed a Washing-

ton Post story detailing a lynch-

ing threat, Klan reminiscences

and Confederacy veneration at

the Lexington school, whose ca-

dets fought and died for the

slaveholding South during the

Civil War.

The letter — signed by

Northam, Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax

(D), Attorney General Mark R.

Herring (D), and several House

and Senate leaders, including

Del. Lamont Bagby (D-Henrico),

the chair of the Virginia Legisla-

tive Black Caucus — said the state

is directing an “independent,

third-party review” of what offi-

cials called “the clear and appall-

ing culture of ongoing structural

racism at the Virginia Military

Institute.”

“Black cadets at VMI have long

faced repeated instances of rac-

ism on campus, including horri-

fying new revelations of threats

about lynching, vicious attacks

on social media, and even a

professor who spoke fondly o f her

family’s history in the Ku Klux

Klan — to say nothing of inconsis-

tent application of the Institute’s

Honor Code,” the letter said. “In

addition, VMI cadets continue to

be educated in a physical envi-

ronment that honors the Confed-

eracy and celebrates an inaccu-

rate and dangerous ‘Lost Cause’

version of Virginia’s history. It is

SEE VMI ON B4

Review

of VMI’s

culture

ordered

STATE WILL FUND

OUTSIDE INQUIRY

Black cadets had detailed

widespread racism

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Simone Stringfellow, 19, registers to vote for the first time. D.C. Board of Elections staff member LaVonna McCann

talks to local basketball greats Phil Chenier, left, and Harvey Grant at a voter registration event this month in Southeast Washington. A voter deposits

a ballot into a D.C. drop box. A D.C. mailed ballot showing the line where voters are required to sign. Signatures are checked against others on file.

THE WASHINGTON POST

BILL O’LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST BILL O’LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST

GRAEME JENNINGS/BLOOMBERG NEWS

BY MICHAEL BRICE-SADDLER,

RACHEL CHASON

AND DANA HEDGPETH

D.C. health officials added

eight states Monday to the city’s

list of locations considered “high-

risk” for travel because of the

coronavirus pandemic, raising

the total number of states under

the designation to 39 as new

cases continue to surge across the

country.

The growing number of states

on the city’s travel advisory

would mean three in four resi-

dents of the country are required

to quarantine before nonessen-

tial travel in the nation’s capital.

It comes amid record rates of

infection in several states and

elevated levels of spread across

the Washington region.

A state is considered high-risk

if its seven-day rolling average of

new coronavirus cases is 10 or

more per 100,000 people. Under

an order from Mayor Muriel E.

Bowser (D), anyone who comes to

the city from a high-risk state for

nonessential reasons must self-

quarantine for two weeks.

Those who arrive in D.C. from

one of the states for essential

purposes are asked to self-moni-

tor for symptoms for two weeks.

No states were removed from

the list Monday, but Arizona,

Colorado, Connecticut, Massa-

chusetts, Michigan, Ohio, Penn-

sylvania and Rhode Island were

added. Maryland and Virginia

remain exempt from the order.

“We still see about a quarter of

our cases related to travel,” Bows-

er said, suggesting residents ad-

here to guidance the city will

release in the coming days on

Thanksgiving and holiday season

travel. “We continue to empha-

size to D.C. residents to avoid

unnecessary travel.”

About 243 million Americans

— roughly 75 percent of the

population — live in states that

SEE REGION ON B2

D.C. a dds eight states to its ‘high-risk’ travel list

Number grows to 39

amid rising coronavirus

cases across country