Government
It’s taking more time to cast a ballot in US elections – and even longer for Black and Hispanic voters
A 2014 US Presidential Commission set a guideline that voters should not have to wait more than 30 minutes to cast their ballots. In some voting districts,…
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Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the November 2020 election brought out about 155 million voters. That represented 67% of Americans over 18, and it was the highest voter turnout of any modern election.
Americans also set records in the percent and number of people voting early and by mail, continuing a decadeslong trend away from voting only on election day.
That was the good news.
The 2020 elections also saw record numbers of Americans forced to wait longer to vote, partly because of the increased number of voters and the difficulties of safely voting during a lethal pandemic. Tellingly, as in the past, if you waited over 30 minutes to cast a vote, you were more likely to be a low-income Black American.
Since 2012, when more than 5 million Americans were forced to wait longer than an hour to cast their ballots, long waits have become a visible indicator of voting problems.
The Presidential Commission on Election Administration stated in 2014 that “No citizen should have to wait more than 30 minutes to vote.”
Eight years later, that goal is further away than before. Where you are and who you are significantly affect how long it will take you to vote. As well as demanding more time and commitment – including arrangements for child care if needed – long waits can discourage future voting.
Increasing wait times
Average waits nationally increased to 14.3 minutes in 2020 from 10.4 minutes in 2016, a 40% jump. These waits were concentrated in poorer neighborhoods with a higher percentage of nonwhite voters.
A further indication that waiting is a growing problem was its addition in 2022 to the voting inconvenience category by the Cost of Voting Index project, which measures the ease or difficulty of voting in individual states.
While the great majority of Americans waited only a few minutes to vote in 2020, a significant minority did not.
One in 7 voters – 14.3% – waited longer than the 30-minute 2014 goal set by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, compared with 1 in 12 – 8.3% – in 2016. And 1 in 16 voters – 6.3% – surveyed by the MIT Election Data Science Lab waited over an hour.
Twelve states – including Alabama, Georgia, New York, Indiana and Maryland – exceeded that average. In 2020, Delaware voters reported the highest average wait at 35 minutes – up strikingly from 5 minutes in 2016. South Carolina had the second-longest wait at 30 minutes, up from its nation-leading 20 minutes in 2016.
But the time spent waiting in line to cast a ballot is only the most visible cost of voting.
The full cost not only includes the actual vote, but also the time and effort of registration, staying registered and the nonpartisan counting and administration of the vote. Most election administration officials are partisan figures, though they are expected to administer the election in a nonpartisan manner.
Partisan voting laws
Political parties are using the voting process itself as a way to gain advantage.
Researchers have found a correlation between the number of Republican legislators in a state and the greater the cost to vote will be disproportionately to Black voters.
In at least one state, Florida from 2004 to 2016, as the number of Democratic voters increased in a county, so did the number of voters per poll worker, thus increasing the potential for waiting and other delays.
Strict voter identification laws appear to disproportionately affect minority voters but not overall voter turnout, although the full impact of these laws remains uncertain.
In 2021-22, 21 states passed 42 laws making voting more difficult. Some of those laws include imposing new photo ID requirements, limiting Election Day registration and requiring voters to provide identification numbers when they apply to vote by mail.
On the other side, 25 states passed 62 laws making voting easier. In June 2022, for example, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law the landmark John Lewis Voting Rights Act that created new legal protections against voter suppression, vote dilution and voter intimidation.
Despite the greater number of bills that made voting easier, the restrictive laws were more encompassing, often rolling back successful pandemic-based efforts to encourage early and absentee voting. Despite research showing no partisan advantage to early and absentee voting, restrictive laws were passed primarily in Republican states and expansive laws primarily in Democratic states.
A question of fairness
The effect of these laws on turnout is uncertain, especially if they inspire a “backlash mobilization” or civic education efforts. Lawsuits may block some laws. In early October 2022, a Montana state judge deemed three laws unconstitutional – one that required additional identification if voting with a student ID, another that halted third-party ballot collection and a third that banned same-day voter registration.
The last two laws would have adversely affected Native Americans, who might live 50 miles from a polling place.
In September 2021, the GOP-controlled Texas legislature passed a new election law that restricted early voting, tightened absentee voting, instituted new rules for voter assistance and added criminal penalties for some violations.
One ramification occurred during the 2022 primary, when Texas election officials rejected over 12% of absentee ballots, a huge increase from the normal 1% to 2%.
While rejections equally affected voters in Republican and Democratic Texas primaries, strict rules about who could vote absentee meant most of those disqualified voters were over 65 or had disabilities.
Depending on who was the majority party, Texas Democratic and Republican politicians have long led the nation in making voting difficult for Black citizens since the end of the Civil War, and more recently once Republicans gained power in the 1980s.
In 2020, Republican Governor Greg Abbott restricted ballot drop boxes to only one per county, giving the 4.7 million people in the 1,778 square miles of Harris County, which is 20.3% Black, the same ability to drop off their ballot as the 10,500 people in the 275 square miles of Franklin County, which is 4.8% Black.
Before the ban, Harris County intended to provide 11 ballot boxes for easier access. Abbott claimed he was increasing ballot security, but the reality was that he increased the difficulty for city dwellers, who increasingly lean Democratic and nonwhite, to vote.
Perhaps the country’s most restrictive election law, Georgia’s Election Integrity Act of 2021, reduced mail and early voting while making the State Election Board a more political office. Fulton County, the largest county with over a million people and is 44.7% Black, will be limited to eight ballot drop boxes – all indoors – instead of the usual 38 outdoor drop boxes. In addition, the law banned the county from using mobile voting buses.
Media attention, however, focused on a ban on offering food or water to voters within 150 feet of a polling place or within 25 feet of voters waiting in line. An exception was made for poll workers and election judges who can provide water to voters.
Just as some nonprofits have helped states improve the clarity and legibility of their ballots, so too could similar nonpartisan expertise of resource optimization and supply chain management improve the administration of elections.
Like other state governments, Georgia could minimize the time needed to vote if it provided the resources, training and communication to its staff that administers elections, and thus encourage American citizens to exercise their ability to vote.
“A cornerstone of our election process is fundamental fairness,” Matthew Weil, the Bipartisan Policy Center Elections Project director, stated. “If different people are experiencing the election system, the voting experience, quite unequally, that’s a problem – full stop.”
Jonathan Coopersmith is a Democrat and has contributed to numerous campaigns, causes, and organizations, including the Brennan Center. He prefers to vote early.
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Government
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study
Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
People with inadequate…
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Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.
A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.
Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels
Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.
In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.
According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.
But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.
“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”
The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.
“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”
The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.
1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID
COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.
Government
Walmart joins Costco in sharing key pricing news
The massive retailers have both shared information that some retailers keep very close to the vest.
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As we head toward a presidential election, the presumed candidates for both parties will look for issues that rally undecided voters.
The economy will be a key issue, with Democrats pointing to job creation and lowering prices while Republicans will cite the layoffs at Big Tech companies, high housing prices, and of course, sticky inflation.
The covid pandemic created a perfect storm for inflation and higher prices. It became harder to get many items because people getting sick slowed down, or even stopped, production at some factories.
Related: Popular mall retailer shuts down abruptly after bankruptcy filing
It was also a period where demand increased while shipping, trucking and delivery systems were all strained or thrown out of whack. The combination led to product shortages and higher prices.
You might have gone to the grocery store and not been able to buy your favorite paper towel brand or find toilet paper at all. That happened partly because of the supply chain and partly due to increased demand, but at the end of the day, it led to higher prices, which some consumers blamed on President Joe Biden's administration.
Biden, of course, was blamed for the price increases, but as inflation has dropped and grocery prices have fallen, few companies have been up front about it. That's probably not a political choice in most cases. Instead, some companies have chosen to lower prices more slowly than they raised them.
However, two major retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Costco, have been very honest about inflation. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon's most recent comments validate what Biden's administration has been saying about the state of the economy. And they contrast with the economic picture being painted by Republicans who support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
Image source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Walmart sees lower prices
McMillon does not talk about lower prices to make a political statement. He's communicating with customers and potential customers through the analysts who cover the company's quarterly-earnings calls.
During Walmart's fiscal-fourth-quarter-earnings call, McMillon was clear that prices are going down.
"I'm excited about the omnichannel net promoter score trends the team is driving. Across countries, we continue to see a customer that's resilient but looking for value. As always, we're working hard to deliver that for them, including through our rollbacks on food pricing in Walmart U.S. Those were up significantly in Q4 versus last year, following a big increase in Q3," he said.
He was specific about where the chain has seen prices go down.
"Our general merchandise prices are lower than a year ago and even two years ago in some categories, which means our customers are finding value in areas like apparel and hard lines," he said. "In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples, and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries."
McMillon said that in other areas prices were still up but have been falling.
"Dry grocery and consumables categories like paper goods and cleaning supplies are up mid-single digits versus last year and high teens versus two years ago. Private-brand penetration is up in many of the countries where we operate, including the United States," he said.
Costco sees almost no inflation impact
McMillon avoided the word inflation in his comments. Costco (COST) Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who steps down on March 15, has been very transparent on the topic.
The CFO commented on inflation during his company's fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.
"Most recently, in the last fourth-quarter discussion, we had estimated that year-over-year inflation was in the 1% to 2% range. Our estimate for the quarter just ended, that inflation was in the 0% to 1% range," he said.
Galanti made clear that inflation (and even deflation) varied by category.
"A bigger deflation in some big and bulky items like furniture sets due to lower freight costs year over year, as well as on things like domestics, bulky lower-priced items, again, where the freight cost is significant. Some deflationary items were as much as 20% to 30% and, again, mostly freight-related," he added.
bankruptcy pandemic trumpGovernment
Walmart has really good news for shoppers (and Joe Biden)
The giant retailer joins Costco in making a statement that has political overtones, even if that’s not the intent.
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As we head toward a presidential election, the presumed candidates for both parties will look for issues that rally undecided voters.
The economy will be a key issue, with Democrats pointing to job creation and lowering prices while Republicans will cite the layoffs at Big Tech companies, high housing prices, and of course, sticky inflation.
The covid pandemic created a perfect storm for inflation and higher prices. It became harder to get many items because people getting sick slowed down, or even stopped, production at some factories.
Related: Popular mall retailer shuts down abruptly after bankruptcy filing
It was also a period where demand increased while shipping, trucking and delivery systems were all strained or thrown out of whack. The combination led to product shortages and higher prices.
You might have gone to the grocery store and not been able to buy your favorite paper towel brand or find toilet paper at all. That happened partly because of the supply chain and partly due to increased demand, but at the end of the day, it led to higher prices, which some consumers blamed on President Joe Biden's administration.
Biden, of course, was blamed for the price increases, but as inflation has dropped and grocery prices have fallen, few companies have been up front about it. That's probably not a political choice in most cases. Instead, some companies have chosen to lower prices more slowly than they raised them.
However, two major retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Costco, have been very honest about inflation. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon's most recent comments validate what Biden's administration has been saying about the state of the economy. And they contrast with the economic picture being painted by Republicans who support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.
Image source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Walmart sees lower prices
McMillon does not talk about lower prices to make a political statement. He's communicating with customers and potential customers through the analysts who cover the company's quarterly-earnings calls.
During Walmart's fiscal-fourth-quarter-earnings call, McMillon was clear that prices are going down.
"I'm excited about the omnichannel net promoter score trends the team is driving. Across countries, we continue to see a customer that's resilient but looking for value. As always, we're working hard to deliver that for them, including through our rollbacks on food pricing in Walmart U.S. Those were up significantly in Q4 versus last year, following a big increase in Q3," he said.
He was specific about where the chain has seen prices go down.
"Our general merchandise prices are lower than a year ago and even two years ago in some categories, which means our customers are finding value in areas like apparel and hard lines," he said. "In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples, and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries."
McMillon said that in other areas prices were still up but have been falling.
"Dry grocery and consumables categories like paper goods and cleaning supplies are up mid-single digits versus last year and high teens versus two years ago. Private-brand penetration is up in many of the countries where we operate, including the United States," he said.
Costco sees almost no inflation impact
McMillon avoided the word inflation in his comments. Costco (COST) Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who steps down on March 15, has been very transparent on the topic.
The CFO commented on inflation during his company's fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.
"Most recently, in the last fourth-quarter discussion, we had estimated that year-over-year inflation was in the 1% to 2% range. Our estimate for the quarter just ended, that inflation was in the 0% to 1% range," he said.
Galanti made clear that inflation (and even deflation) varied by category.
"A bigger deflation in some big and bulky items like furniture sets due to lower freight costs year over year, as well as on things like domestics, bulky lower-priced items, again, where the freight cost is significant. Some deflationary items were as much as 20% to 30% and, again, mostly freight-related," he added.
bankruptcy pandemic trump
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