Monday Memo #73: Hoover’s Scott Atlas Apologizes for Interview with Kremlin-Backed RT
Monday Memo #73: Hoover’s Scott Atlas Apologizes for Interview with Kremlin-Backed RT
By Noah Howard and Jackson Vachal
Start your election week off right, with a round-up of Stanford-related news from Stanford Politics.
Hoover’s Scott Atlas Apologizes for Interview with Kremlin-Backed RT
Senior Hoover Institution Fellow Dr. Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist who joined the federal administration’s coronavirus task force in August, has publicly apologized for a recent interview with RT. The international news network, funded by the Russian government, is registered with the U.S. Justice Department as a foreign agent engaging in political activity. It is recognized by the intelligence community as a tool of the Russian state to spread political propaganda. According to a 2017 report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, RT was a channel for Russian interference in the 2016 election. In his apology, Dr. Atlas said of RT that he was “unaware they are a registered foreign agent” and regrets participating in the interview. During the interview Dr. Atlas made a number of controversial statements about the coronavirus, questioning the effectiveness of masks and criticizing lockdowns. These statements mirror those that inspired many Stanford Medical School faculty to sign an open letter criticizing Dr. Atlas’ opinions on COVID-19 policy.
Signature Matching and Elections
With the coronavirus pandemic altering how many people go about their daily lives, it is unsurprising that it has had a significant impact on how citizens engage in elections. In the United States this is especially evident in the record setting numbers of mail-in ballots cast thus far in the 2020 presidential election. This has triggered extensive partisan debates about the integrity of mail-in ballots in general and the impact it will have on the coming election in particular. One facet of this discussion that has received relatively little national attention is the impact signature verification has on mail-in ballots. Signature verification is a process in over 30 states in the U.S. by which officials check a mail-in ballot for fraud by comparing the signature on the ballot with other signatures on government documents. However, this practice is filled with a plethora of inconsistencies throughout the nation with individual states and sometimes even individual counties within states setting their own procedure for how to detect fraud with strikingly poor results. For example, there is no standard document which signatures are compared to. Some states compare signatures on ballots to those on their ballot request form, others on their voter registration and still others on their driver’s license. Moreover, some states employ different software to compare signatures while others employ volunteers. These volunteers often have very poor training for their assigned jobs. In the judicial system of the United States, a forensic document examiner often has to be trained for two or more years whereas the average volunteer is given under eight hours.
These inconsistencies and poor training have serious consequences. According to the Stanford-MIT Healthy Election Project, Black and Hispanic voters in the 2020 Florida primary found their ballots rejected at twice the rate of white voters . During the 2016 Presidential election, hundreds of thousands of voters found their ballots disqualified for this very reason, prompting a multitude of challenges in the lead up to the next election. In a challenge to Ohio’s signature law, testimony was received by a Carroll College political scientist who found that 97% of rejected ballots are probably authentic. In addition, a similar legal challenge was filed in Florida when people discovered that officials responsible for checking signatures on mail-in ballots were given no training on how to do so. When considering first time mail-in voters, this issue is of profound importance, as they are about three times more likely to have their ballot rejected. Therefore, it is of profound importance that voters carefully follow mail-in voting instructions and know their county guidelines.
Political Rallies in the Age of COVID-19
Throughout the 2020 presidential race, political rallies have been a target of criticism due to the significant risk of Covid exposure associated with large gatherings. By examining 18 rallies held by President Trump between June 20, 2020 and September 22, 2020, Stanford researchers studied the effect these rallies had in the counties that hosted them. They found that counties that hosted rallies, when compared to those with similar rates of Covid infections, exhibited a stark increase in infection rates. In fact, the results of this research indicate that more than 30,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were caused by these rallies, leading to more than 700 deaths. According to B. Douglas Bernheim, chairman of Stanford’s Department of Economics and an author of this study, the counties that hosted Trump rallies “paid a high price in terms of disease and death.” While this study is awaiting peer review, its authors hope that this research will plainly show that guidelines from public health officials are important and save lives in a calculable way.
Stanford Researchers Enter New COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Phase, as Public Vaccine Confidence Wanes
Researchers at Stanford Medicine have begun phase three of trials testing the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson. The double blind study is scheduled to include 60,000 participants at 180 locations worldwide. Stanford Medicine will execute testing and monitoring for about 1,000 trial participants in the Bay Area. Participants will be monitored for a period of two years and one month, during which time each will visit the testing site eight times. The vaccine, one of four being developed by American companies in stage three human trials, consists of the shell of an adenovirus (a type of common, low-risk virus) filled with genetic material imitating a COVID-19 spike protein. Despite encouraging results in animal and early human trials, this vaccine and others are likely to face skepticism from the American public. A new Pew survey indicates that Americans’ willingness to get vaccinated for COVID-19 has rapidly declined in recent months. As recently as May, 72% of respondents reported that they would either probably or definitely get vaccinated if a vaccine was available at that time, while 27% said they probably or definitely would not. As of September, these percentages had changed drastically, to 51% and 49%, respectively. Americans’ faltering confidence comes amidst highly publicized concerns that the federal government and pharmaceutical companies are accelerating vaccine development timelines, to the detriment of safety standards. Pew reports that 77% of Americans believe it is at least somewhat likely that a vaccine is approved before its safety and efficacy are well-understood.
And in case you missed it…
These Americans Tried to Listen to One Another (NY Times | Emily Badger)
Stanford Opposes Proposed ICE Regulation (Stanford Daily | Tianyu Fang)
Academic Freedom Questions Arise on Campus over COVID-19 Strategy Conflicts (Stanford University News | Kate Chesley)
Healthcare as Climate Solution (Stanford University News | Rob Jordan)
About the Authors
Noah Howard ’21 is pursuing majors in Economics and International Relations with a minor in Iranian Studies. Living in Washington D.C., he is currently writing a thesis about the role of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
Jackson Vachal ’22 is pursuing majors in Political Science and Philosophy, with a focus on democratic theory. He is interested in social entrepreneurship and nonprofit advocacy work.
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