Transcript of Election Workers Voice Concerns, Influencers In Springfield, Sickle Cell Treatments

Early voting has started for this year's presidential election.

After 2020, when Donald Trump tried to overturn the results and slander election workers, officials are getting ready for new conspiracy theories.

I'm Steve Inskeep with Leila Fadel, and this is Up First from NPR News. Former President Trump picked up a false story off the internet, and ever since, influencers have been trying to find evidence of imaginary events in Springfield, Ohio.

I have seen a lot of those independent journalists just walking around with their phone.

Okay, what are they finding?

And there are now genetic treatments for people living with sickle cell disease, but some people have been slow to opt in.

I'm really nervous about how that will affect fertility.

Stay with us. We'll give you the news you need to start your day. Voting has begun in the 2024 general election.

States are starting to send out absentee ballots, and early in-person voting starts today in Virginia and Minnesota. This is the first presidential election since Donald Trump's efforts in 2020 to overturn his defeat. Part of that effort included demonizing election administrators and other acts. And now, election officials are supposed to do their jobs in a presidential race again.

Npr's Miles Parks covers voting and he joins us now from the swing state of Michigan. Hey, Miles.

Hey, Leila.

You were at a media briefing with swing state voting officials. How are they feeling?

Yeah. The energy yesterday was really interesting. I'm from Florida originally, and I could not help thinking that this meeting reminded me a lot of the feeling a day or two before a hurricane was set to make landfall when I was a kid. These officials, they spent the last four years preparing, trying to improve their systems, educate voters, try to persuade the many skeptical people in their communities about their processes. But in some ways, the next couple of weeks, as voting starts, are a little bit out of their control. They don't know exactly what's going to happen. And there's this nervous energy in a sense that some unknown variable It should happen at any time. Here's the executive director of North Carolina's Board of Elections, Karen Brunson-Bell.

Hopefully, we're returning to a world of civility where we understand that there are winners and losers in every contest, be it a sporting event or an electoral contest, and that has to be accepted.

You can hear in her voice, that is not really a sure thing right now. But I also heard from a lot of election officials that they feel battle-tested at this point, that they feel prepared for the conspiracy theories and schemes that they're expecting to see over the next couple of weeks.

Did you get a sense from voting officials which of these schemes, conspiracy theories they may be expecting in November?

Yes. It is clear the number one narrative for the election denial wing of the Republican Party around this time is going to be non-citizens voting in American elections. Studies and audits have repeatedly confirmed that this is not a thing. It isn't happening at anything but microscopic numbers. But the far right has really centered their messaging on this idea online, and former President Trump is already talking about it. Officials say it is almost certainly going to be a key narrative if Trump loses the election. But to voting officials, it doesn't make much sense. There are processes in place that make it really difficult for non-citizens to vote, but they also don't think it's logical that a person would go through all the trouble of getting to the United States only to put themselves on a government list, a public record, and put themselves at risk of deportation or arrest. One clerk in Georgia yesterday told me the only time he's ever found non-citizens on his voting rolls are because they've come into his office crying, begging to be taken off when they were added by a mistake.

Now, Miles, election officials, it's a dangerous job these days. It's an increased threat environment. More than a dozen state election officials said they were sent suspicious packages packages this week. How are they feeling about their safety?

Yeah, four of the six states represented this meeting yesterday said their office was sent one of these packages. They didn't end up being dangerous so far. They ended up containing white powder that in some cases was found to be flour. But physical safety is a big theme team, and also the mental toll that this environment is taking on these people. Workers are going to be more likely to make mistakes if they're looking over their shoulder constantly. Then those human mistakes are what further this cycle of misinformation. Gabriel Sterling, who's another election official Georgia, made a plea to the audience during the town hall portion of this meeting yesterday to just remember that these are all humans in your neighborhood who are running this elections process.

Npr's Miles Parks. Thank you, Miles.

Thank you.

Social media influencers keep trying to find evidence of an imaginary story about Haitians eating pets.

Now, let's recall some of the basics. People online repeated a story that's not true for months about migrants in Springfield, Ohio. The origin is obscure, though some of the people who repeated the rumors later apologize for spreading this false and dehumanizing information. Vice presidential candidate JD Vance picked up the tale that plays on stereotypes of immigrants. And then former President Trump stated it as fact in a televised presidential debate.

So supporters have been trying to find something on the streets of Springfield. And Pierre Swojanang also spent time reporting there and come back and is in our Studio 31 here. Good morning. Thanks for coming by. So who are these online personalities?

Well, some of these influencers might not be household names to you and I, but they have millions of followers. Some are part of big organizations like the Pro-Trump conservative Group, Turning Point USA. Oh, yeah. And others seem pretty much on their own, like this guy, Tyler Oliveira, whose video about Springfield got 4 million views in a week.

I pulled up to Springfield to see if this was real or overblown fake news.

What they all share, though, is a skepticism of mainstream journalism and what the city has said about the story. Moments like this are a big opportunity for them to build a following and get lots of clicks and views that they can monetize.

Okay, big mystery, citizen, journalists, lots of suspense, lots of people on the ground. Have they found anything? No.

There were a lot of suggestive headlines, but I went through a bunch of these videos with my colleagues, Jude Joffy blog and Audrey Wend, and hopefully, we didn't see anybody who has any concrete evidence. To the end, here's one example of note. Christopher Rufo is a prominent conservative activist, and he put out a $5,000 bounty online asking for evidence that Asian immigrants are eating cats in Springfield. What it was able to come up with several days later is this grainy year-old video, not from Springfield, but from Dayton, which is 30 miles away, purporting to show cats being grilled. But when you look at the video, it's actually hard to see what was going on. Yeah, I've seen it.

When you went to Springfield, what did you find?

Well, we tried to do what the inference did. We drove around, we talked to some of these people, and again, we found no evidence to back up these claims. We reached out to some of these people that we saw in these videos who either say they have witnessed something or may know somebody who might have witnessed something, but at the end of the day, they will not speak to us on the record. And on the other hand, the Haitians, they were very nervous. They're really fearful. But one person did speak up. Rilis Dorsanville is a community leader, and he says that he and a fellow Haitian were misrepresented in a video by Tyler Oliveira, that YouTuber. Dorsanville's image was presented alongside car crashes he said he has nothing to do with. And his fellow Haitian's image was edited to show that he had a cat in his hand. We reached out to Oliver for comment, and he has not responded to our request.

Okay, you mentioned car crashes. That's another of the fake stories about immigrants and car crashes. What has life been like for the Haitians in this community where there are a lot of Haitians?

The community has been dealing with bomb threats and extremists marching through the streets following Trump and his running major events, making these claims. The intense media coverage adds to the anxiety. In a popular Haitian restaurant, I talked to Junior Berville, who moved from Haiti to Springfield recently. Berville says he feels safe himself for now, but his family doesn't. My mom, she want to leave.

My sister as well, because they are afraid.

Residents that we talk to across the board want this national attention to move on. But for now, no. Trump said he wants to visit the city soon.

Nprs. N'nan, thanks so much.

Thanks so much.

There's a problem with treatments for sickle cell disease.

An announcement of genetic treatments generated excitement a year ago, but so far not very many people have signed up.

Npr Health Correspondent Rob has been asking why. Rob, good morning.

Good morning, Steve.

First, how bad is this disease?

Steve, it's just an awful disease. Sickle cell patients are born with a genetic mutation that causes deformed red blood cells. And those deformed red blood cells just wreak havoc in the body. They damage vital organs, and they cause these episodes known as pain crises. I talked about this with Olaide Adekanbi. She's a 29-year-old sickle cell patient who lives in Boston. It gets to the point sometimes where you're like, I cannot continue living this way.

You feel like you're losing your mind because sometimes I just can't move. I just lay in one spot and try to distract myself from the pain.

But these new treatments, they can help patients like her by giving them genetically modified cells that compensate for the sickle cell mutation.

Well, Rob, you would think if it's that bad an experience that people would jump at the chance to address it somehow.

Yeah, and there is a lot of excitement about this among patients and doctors and advocates, but so far, only about 60 of the tens of thousands of patients who are eligible for these treatments have started so far. There are a bunch of reasons. One is that patients need to get a course of chemotherapy, and that chemotherapy can leave them infertile. That's one reason why Atacanbe is on the fence. I know I would like to have children in the, not too near, but in the future. So I'm really nervous about how that will affect fertility. But that's not all. Patients also have to go through lots of tests and procedures, and they might have to spend weeks, maybe even months in a hospital that may not be near where they live, then years of follow-up. These treatments, they're really expensive, $2-$3 million per patient. Some patients are also worried about what's going to happen in the long term. Will it keep working? Will it be safe?

I'm glad that you brought me the voice of patient because I feel that I can hear the anxiety in her voice and the difficulty of this decision. So what does the future hold for people like her?

Yeah, it's a really tough decision the patients are agonizing over. It's not surprising that it's going slowly so far because these treatments are so complicated. But the companies that make them say that interest is accelerating, dozens of hospitals are online now and more are coming, more insurance companies are paying for it. I talked to another patient, Dashan Chou. He's 19, lives in Irvine, California, and he's on track to get his genetically modified cells at the City of Hope Children's Cancer Center in Los Angeles by the end of the year. The first time I heard about it, I was uncertain about it, but I'm hoping that it will change my life. So the hope is with time, more and more patients will benefit from this new cutting edge treatments for sickle cell disease.

Npr Health Correspondent Rob Stein brings us fascinating stories about genetics. Rob, thanks so much.

Sure. Thanks, Steve. Great to be here.

That's Up First for Friday, September 20th. I'm Leila Faulding.

I'm Steve Inskeep. Up First comes your way on the weekend. Ayesha Rosco and Scott Simon have the news in this feed or wherever you get your podcasts.

Today's episode of Up First was edited by Ben Swayzey, Brett Neely, Scott Hensley, H. J. Mai, and Ali Schweitzer. It was produced by Iman Mahani, Zyad Butch, Nia Dumas, and Monse Karana. We get Engineering support from Arthur Laurent, and our technical director is Zack Coleman. Join us again on Monday.

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