June 2020 News
Editor’s Choice: Scroll below for our monthly blend of mainstream and alternative June 2020 news and views
Note: Excerpts are from the authors’ words except for subheads and occasional “Editor’s notes” such as this. We have been resolving technical issues with the site and regret the interruption in our coverage earlier this month.
June 9
Top Stories
Washington Post, After criticism, WHO clarifies stance on asymptomatic transmission, William Wan and Miriam Berger, June 9, 2020. The organization said an earlier statement calling asymptomatic transmission of coronavirus “very rare” was a “misunderstanding.” But the comment had already been seized upon by conservatives and others to bolster arguments against social distancing and face masks.
Washington Post, Problems with voting machines, long lines in Georgia as primary voting begins amid pandemic, Amy Gardner and Michelle Ye Hee Lee, June 9, 2020. In the five states holding primaries today, in-person polling places have been limited or eliminated, and officials have made it easier to vote by mail.
Lines snaked out the doors, some polling locations didn’t open on time, and others had no working voting machines in several counties in the first hours of voting in Georgia’s primary elections Tuesday, a potential preview of how new voting procedures brought on by the coronavirus pandemic could affect the presidential election in November.
“This seems to be happening throughout Atlanta and perhaps throughout the county. People have been in line since before 7:00 am this morning,” Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tweeted barely 30 minutes after polls opened Tuesday.
She added: “If you are in line, PLEASE do not allow your vote to be suppressed. PLEASE stay in line. They should offer you a provisional ballot if the machines are not working.”
Voters in the Atlanta area reported arriving before polls opened and standing in line for hours, with election officials processing ballots painfully slowly because they couldn’t get new touch screen machines to work.…