Maintaining election integrity never easy. Threats make it more complicated

If you liked January 6, 2021, you might love January 6, 2025.

That riot some 50 months ago assaulted 250 police officers (injuring 174), had seven fatalities, damaged the Capitol (costing more than $2 billion), and led to 1,488 people being charged (with 749 convicted and 467 imprisoned). Urged by Trump, thousands bolstered by the Proud Boys and other extremist groups, some armed, gathered around the Capitol, broke through police lines, and threatened lawmakers and Vice President Mike Pence.

It was the worst attack on the U.S. government since the British burned down the White House in the War of 1812.

The motivation for that insurrection spurred on by Trump drew upon the Big Lie that his defeat came from voter fraud and also from Americans who accepted the conspiracy (debunked by almost 100 state and federal court cases that rejected election challenges because there was no proof)

The lie still lives. People who embrace the falsehood remain. Some are threatening election authorities.

The nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice’s recent survey showed that 38% of local election officials have experienced harassment and threats for doing their job, and more than half are worried about safety for themselves and colleagues.

Of course, people using threats to question the U.S. election system aren’t helping authorities ensure its accuracy.

Since the 2020 election, when Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump, 81 million to 74 million (306 Electoral College votes to 232), there’s been an unprecedented increase in threats to election authorities nationwide.

The hostility, directed against federal, state and local officials, has included violent rhetoric and even gunshots at the homes of election officials (in New Mexico), threats to harm or kill election authorities (Arizona), threatening election workers at a polling place (Florida), texting violent threats to a member of a Board of Canvassers (Michigan), and envelopes with a return address of U.S. Traitor Elimination Army (USTEA) received at various offices, containing a white powder, some of which were laced with fentanyl, according to the FBI.

In Central Illinois, Peoria Election Commission Executive Director Elizabeth Gannon says the possibility of such attacks is less of a disruption than a nuisance.

“It’s emboldened attackers,” she said, noting that her office hasn’t received the USTEA envelopes. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t bad actors.”

So she and her staff are preparing for the worst, participating in exercises organized by state County Clerks, meeting with the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency, part of Homeland Security – which has issued a warning about calls for violence -- plus local officials ranging from the Sheriff and Emergency Management to IT experts.

“I wouldn’t say we’re intimidated,” she continued. “We’re hyper-aware. It’s in the backs of our minds. So we’ve taken precautionary measures.”

Conservative columnist S.E. Cupp wrote about elections’ “New Normal” –

“All this to protect her from … what? From whom? Terrorists? Assassins? Gangsters? Criminals?

“No. All this is to protect her from election deniers.”

Why threaten or try to intimidate neighbors? Partly, Trump is determined to regain office, and his base dutifully follows him, despite his almost desperate zeal for power, possibly to pardon himself for his conviction of violating campaign laws or escape prosecution for illegally retaining classified documents or engineering the 2021 insurrection.

Before Nov. 6, an overall goal is to discourage or suppress turnout, sow doubt about the country’s system, force litigation, and ultimately challenge certification by Congress. After the Capitol was cleared on January 6 and Congress resumed business, 147 lawmakers 50 months ago succumbed to pressure and voted to overturn the U.S. election – 139 Members of the House of Representatives 8 Senators, according to the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The House could still hold its slim majority this January.

“Such efforts to derail democracy are exactly what our adversaries who oppose democracy desire,” said David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research. “And it appears those that oppose American democracy are preparing to use this tactic in November, if their preferred candidate loses.”

Also not helping election authorities do their jobs – in fact hurting the process – is disinformation, a raging waterfall of sewage shared online and from telecasts and the “bully pulpit” (an apt description of a Trump rally, perhaps).

A common complaint from deniers is the trustworthiness of voting equipment since it’s connected to the internet.

Except it’s not, said Gannon.

“We have paper ballots ever since we replaced our outdated system, from 2006,” she said. “This will be the fifth election using paper ballots. Neither the polling places nor early results are online.”

The process is thorough, she said: Preliminary counts result in unofficial totals, a canvass that can take a couple of weeks yields an official total, followed by a re-tabulation by the State Board of Elections before the count is certified – all with a paper trail if verifications are needed.

Disinformation is getting so extreme it borders on comedy. U.S. Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) this month said hurricane Helene was manipulated by Democratic weather-control technology to steer the storm to Republican areas, which is like calling Dolly Parton’s $1 million donation to relief efforts a PR stunt.

Republican North Carolina State Sen. Kevin Corbin begged people to “help STOP this conspiracy theory junk that is floating all over Facebook and the internet about the floods in WNC.”

John Dixon Keller, principal deputy chief of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, said the DOJ is already prosecuting and investigating threats against election workers.

“It threatens the foundation of our democracy.,” he said. “Threats do not contribute to the marketplace of ideas. They are condemnable, criminal acts. Death threats are criminal, and they will be prosecuted.”

Indeed, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “The nature of these threats is some type of communication, either implicit or explicit, directing a threat of unlawful violence to a member of the election community. It could be an election worker, an election official or a state or local candidate.”

A majority of Americans are alarmed. Two-thirds of Americans think Trump won’t accept the results, according to an ABC News/Ipsos poll. A similar percentage fear violence if voters choose Kamala Harris.

Campaigning, Trump has vowed to prosecute “lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters and corrupt election officials,” and just last month he:

* said he’d challenge absentee ballots from military or overseas voters,

* told Right-wing internet host Tucker Carlson that 20% of mail-in ballots will be fraudulent, and

* claimed, without evidence, that “tens of thousands” of undocumented immigrants have registered to vote.

 

“The poison doesn’t begin or end with Trump,” writes Berkeley professor and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich. “It includes a Republican vice presidential candidate who calls women who choose not to have children ‘childless cat ladies,’ claims Haitian immigrants are eating people’s pets, won’t concede that Trump lost the 2020 election, and won’t commit to be bound by the outcome of the 2024 election.”

Milton Kidd, an Illinois native now an elections and voter registration director in Georgia, told Stateline news service he’s been stalked and received several hate-filled messages threatening him.

“We’ve reshaped this nation into an uglier, vile, vitriolic spirit that we’re just allowing to continue to manifest,” he said. “I will never let a detractor who calls with vile language deter me from the work that I do.”

 

From coast to coast, election deniers plan chaos

In Illinois, the chair of the state Republican Party, Kathy Salvi, vowed to “make sure that every honest vote is counted,” implying they’re not – and sparking longtime Lake County election judge Laurence Schiller to challenge her to prove there’s a problem.

“Either she doesn’t understand how elections are run in Illinois and how difficult it would be to cast fraudulent ballots,” Schiller said, “or she is just another Trump Republican embracing his big lie.”

Elsewhere, malicious actions are happening enough to cause at least a dozen states to enact new protections for election personnel, and some state governments are scrambling to compel local officials to uphold the law and constitution:

* The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) reports that at least 239 election deniers have positions of authority in eight swing states.

“Our democracy’s firewalls held fast in 2020, but election deniers and MAGA extremists have spent the last four years infiltrating election administration and political party positions in order to disrupt and cast doubt on the 2024 election results,” said CMD’s Arn Pearson. “While it is highly unlikely that these officials, along with deniers in Congress, will be able to prevent certification of the 2024 election results, they are in a prime position to force litigation and delay what should be a ministerial task while they and their allies whip up false claims of voter fraud, non-citizen voting, and a stolen election.”

* At least 70 U.S. elected officials are election deniers, according to investigative reporter Justin Glawe, including Speaker Mike Johnson.

* State officials in Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin say they’ll force local authorities to certify accurate counts.

* Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, said he will ensure counties follow the law and constitution.

* North Carolina’s State Board of Elections removed two members of one county’s election board for refusing to certify a vote.

* In Mississippi, the GOP wants to invalidate ballots if they aren’t cast on Election Day – even if they meet the legal requirement of having been postmarked by Election Day.

* In Michigan, armed protestors demonstrated outside the home of the state’s Secretary of State, and a member of Kalamazoo’s Board of County Commissioners promised to not certify the 2024 election results.

* A host of death threats were made to the Colorado Secretary of State and staff.

* In Washington state, the Secretary of State was threatened.

* In July, a Nevada County Commissioner, Clara Andriola, is such an election denier she refused to certify her own primary election this summer.

'Undecided' working people? Really?

Mere weeks before Election Day, the presidential race seems close, and some people say they remain undecided.

Really.

Labor has rallied behind Harris/Walz, who remind Americans they support unions – and they even pledged to push for passage of the Richard L. Trumka Protecting the Right to Organize Act (the PRO Act), which would reform and modernize federal labor law. (Since the bill would also need Congressional approval, that underscores how important down-ballot contests are, too.)

Meanwhile, Republicans Donald Trump, J.D. Vance and today’s Trump-family-dominated GOP have tried to persuade voters that they back working people, too – despite their anti-worker, anti-union past.

Even before Trump’s takeover of the Republican Party, the GOP has warred with workers for decades, opposing the 1930s’ breakthrough National Labor Relations Act, weakening that foundation in Taft-Hartley and other measures, and especially since the Reagan-era breaking of the air traffic controllers union in 1981.

Republican politicians vote against raising the minimum wage but back Right-To-Work laws; support racist, sexist, and anti-voter legislation but oppose maintaining or strengthening child-labor protections; install anti-labor judges and National Labor Relations Board members but try to de-fund government agencies set up to enforce labor laws, safety and health rules, etc.

Most GOP politicians care far less about working people than they do about their business patrons and keeping their cushy jobs while Trump insists they bow to his whims.

Republicans’ latest attempt to persuade union members the GOP has spent decades systematically disenfranchising comes from Trump running mate Vance, the first-term Senator from Ohio. The author, Marine, Ivy League attorney and venture capitalist puts on his working-class past like ladies apply makeup. But it’s understandable why people think it’s “weird” to hear his insulting comments about women, false claims about legal Haitian immigrants, and yarns about his family. (Dude: Let them live their lives.)

“In my view, Vance’s support for workers hinges almost entirely on white Christian nationalism,” writes journalist Kim Kelly, who’s written for Esquire, Teen Vogue and The New Republic.

“He does not want to uplift the U.S. working class in all its vibrant, multiracial, multigender beauty; he wants (white, male, Christian) workers to earn better wages so that their (white, female, Christian) spouses can stay home and raise more (white, Christian) children.”

Not unlike too many spineless Republicans, Vance is a fear mongerer who rejects unity and solidarity by using divisive exaggerations and lies about crime, immigration, prices and so on to appeal to some workers while avoiding policies that actually support everyday Americans.

Regular working people, unionized or not, Kelly wrote, “are 45% Black, Latino and other workers of color; women workers make up half of the overall total, and 8% of workers are disabled, according to Census data from the 2021 American Community Survey (ACS). This doesn’t leave enough room for simplified hate, though, so MAGA Republicans are looking for the next set of suckers to draw into their poisonous embrace.

“The Republicans are trying to make fools of us by pandering to outdated and incorrect stereotypes about who union members are and what the working class is, hoping to turn us against one another by harping on perceived differences — the same way union-busters and grimy bosses have done since the beginning of wage labor. But it won’t work. There are no neutral positions here — and we know which side they’re on.”

In fact, even when Democratic leaders too often take for granted labor and other parts of its base, differences between 21^st century Republicans and Democrats are stark, and Trump so untethered, that an increasing number of unexpected support has emerged to back Kamala Harris.

When Harris’s campaign has been endorsed by a wide range of voices – Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen, ex-Republican hawk and VP Dick Cheney and long-time Peoria Congressman Ray LaHood – the widening of support shouldn’t be surprising. Coming together this month were Harris and former Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney at a joint appearance in Wisconsin.

Cheney couldn’t restrain her contempt for Trump, commenting, “He is petty, he is vindictive, and he is cruel, and Donald Trump is not fit to lead this good and great nation.”

She asked voters to “reject the depraved cruelty of Donald Trump.”

There’s also a growing split between traditional Republican supporters and Trump. New York Times Magazine writer Jonathan Mahler wrote, “Most C.E.O.s are not wild about a second Trump term. They had a rocky ride the first time around — though they did get the tax cuts and deregulation they wanted — and they are pretty sure he will bring instability, which is generally bad for business.”

Almost 90 current and former business leaders signed a letter endorsing Harris, and they included James Murdoch from the family owning the Wall Street Journal and Fox, plus entrepreneurs Mark Cuban and Magic Johnson, plus former Treasury Secretaries Michael Blumenthal, Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.

Goldman Sachs warns that the broader economy would get the biggest boost if Democrats win the White House and Congress. Even if Harris wins but Congress is divided, the economy under her administration would mean a 2.1% growth in GDP, an average jobless rate of 4% and inflation of 2.4%, according to Moody’s Analytics – compared to a Trump victory working with a GOP Congress predicted to have lower GDP growth, and higher unemployment and inflation.

JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon – who this month said Trump’s claim that he’d endorsed the Republican was a lie – weeks earlier in a Washington Post commentary called for a return to sanity, advocating for “smarter policies that provide protection, progress and prosperity to all,” including fixing the failure to create equal opportunity for all, expanding the economy by encouraging investments, sharing the wealth, addressing our national debt, maintaining the world’s strongest military, taking control of our borders, strengthening the social safety nets, and renewing national pride by unabashedly teaching civics and American exceptionalism without papering over our mistakes.

“Put country and constitution first,” Dimon said.

His remark foreshadowed Liz Cheney’s remark alongside Harris that this election is about “country over party.”

A new campaign, Business Leaders for Harris, has made the case for the Democratic nominee, saying, “For a stronger economy, we choose Kamala Harris.” (See https://www.bizforharris.org/.)

 “Politics make strange bedfellows,” but never so important as when a strange, weird ticket threatens Americans’ many freedom. Besides “Republicans for Harris,” whose website says “over 100,000 people have joined this campaign within a campaign” (Newsweek- Sept. 5), consider a few other Harris endorsements:

* In a Sept. 18 letter published by the New York Times, 111 former staffers, all Republicans who served in the Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush and/or Trump administrations or members of Congress, announced they back Harris. They wrote: “Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable”;

* On Sunday, Sept. 22, a letter released by 741 former national security officials – bipartisan senior leaders—endorsed Harris for president, calling Trump “impulsive and ill-informed” (CNBC News); and

* On Sept. 24, 405 economists endorsed Harris (CNBC).

 

Sometimes, for the good of the nation – in the privacy of the voting booth – people must hold their noses and cast ballots for a candidate about whom they’re not enthused. As conservative columnist Mona Charen wrote, “In 1800, Alexander Hamilton faced a similar dilemma. The Electoral College had tied between Thomas Jefferson (Hamilton’s political opposite) and Aaron Burr, a man of no principles. The House of Representatives had to choose, Hamilton lobbied his Federalist friends to vote for Jefferson, explaining that: ‘Mr. Jefferson, though too revolutionary in his n options, is yet a lover of liberty and will be desirous of something like orderly government – Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself – thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement – and will be content with nothing short of permanent power … in his own hands’.”

The question Nov. 5: Will one-time Trump supporters in organized labor – more than 40% of whom backed him in 2016 and 2020 – weigh the threats to unions and the working class that Trump poses, and join with others who value the country and the constitution?

Feds trying to address tax avoidance

It’s not news that the ultra-rich in the United States take advantage of loopholes, and most Americans suspect that’s a negative impact on the economy. What’s new is that the Treasury Department and Senate Democrats are starting to push for changes that will deal with those who don’t pay their fair share.

Through Dec. 12, the public can comment on the proposed regulations (https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/09/13/2024-20089/corporate-alternative-minimum-tax-applicable-after-2022. A hearing is set for Jan. 16.

“The wealthiest Americans continue to use every trick in the book to duck and dodge paying their taxes,” said Lindsey Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. “It’s unpatriotic. It starves our communities of revenue for needed investments. And it erodes faith in our democracy.”

(Note: “Every trick in the book” means, at least, avoiding taxes can be legal, so tax reform is needed.)

Dealing with tax avoidance is timely since provisions of Trump’s 2017 tax reform are scheduled to expire next year.

Trump brags about his tax cuts, which “permanently” cut corporate tax rates from 35% to 21% (and made slight adjustments for individuals through next year), and he claims vast benefits delivered to everyday Americans. He’s also pledged to “double down”  by continuing and expanding those cuts if elected in November. Specifically, Trump is proposing additional corporate tax cuts, from 21% to 15%, which the Center for American Progress (CAP) says would cost another $1 trillion over 10 years.

However, studies show Trump’s tax reform was a bonanza for the wealthiest corporations and individuals. The benefits did not “trickle down” to most Americans.

“The tax cut was justified with the argument that it would generate so much economic growth and investment and wage growth that low-income Americans would benefit,” says Brendan Duke, senior director for economic policy at CAP Action Fund. “The data is in, and we see no evidence of that. Any wage gains went to executives and the highest paid workers.”

Also, according to the CBO, his tax cut increased deficits by about $1.9 trillion over 11 years.

“The national debt has risen by almost $7.8 trillion during Trump’s time in office,” reported ProPublica’s Allan Sloan in 2021. “That’s nearly twice as much as what Americans owe on student loans, car loans, credit cards and every other type of debt other than mortgages, combined, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

“It amounts to about $23,500 in new federal debt for every person in the country.”

In the first year of Trump’s tax reforms, ExxonMobil received a $6 billion windfall from Trump’s reform, according to Americans for Tax Fairness (AFT). In the second year, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, 91 Fortune 500 companies paid no federal income taxes on their 2018 U.S. income as a result of the tax law.

AFT also reports that 35 U.S. companies paid a negative $1.7 billion between 2018 and 2022, meaning those companies (including Ford, Netflix, T-Mobile and Tesla) together received more money from the U.S. government in refunds than they paid in taxes. During the same five-year period, their CEOs were paid more than their companies’ tax payments.

For its part, Treasury is looking at the role of the Corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (CAMT) and proposing new rules requiring corporations that make $1 billion annual profit to pay at least a 15% minimum tax. Now, such companies pay a federal tax rate of just 2.6% on average, Treasury says.

The consequence of the new rules could mean an estimated $250 billion in additional revenues over the next 10 years.

The change would affect a relatively few corporations, such as Amazon, AT&T, Intel, and Verizon, which now exploit an array of tax credits and deductions to show zero profits.

(Ways the rich escape tax obligations include arranging compensation as something other than a paycheck; manipulating their financial books in “tax-loss harvesting” (which occurs when a wealthy stockholder sells shares at a loss, buys the same amount of another corporation’s stock, and uses the former’s loss to erase much the taxes owed on gains made on the latter); listing personal expenses as business expenses, and making “charitable” contributions for the tax deductions, but controlling the actual use of the donation (so the tax benefits are immediate even if the funds haven’ gone to a good cause yet, if ever).

“The proposed rules are an important step toward realizing Congress’ efforts to address the most egregious U.S. corporate tax avoidance and ensure the largest and most profitable corporations in the country cannot pay little to no taxes,” said Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.

Again, this isn’t a new issue. Thirteen years ago, the Congressional Research Service said the 2011 U.S. tax system violated “the [billionaire Warren] Buffett rule.” That says that no household making more than $1 million a year should pay a smaller share of their income in taxes than middle-class families pay. However, that year, the CRS said “roughly a quarter of all millionaires (about 94,500 taxpayers) face a tax rate that is lower than the tax rate faced by 10.4 million moderate-income taxpayers (10% of the moderate-income taxpayers).”

The tax system in the United States is set up for voluntary compliance, so taxpayers (and their tax preparers) calculate what they owe, as opposed to other nations that essentially determine tax obligations and send taxpayers a “bill.”

Democrats are pushing for a corporate-tax increase. Last month, Senate Democrats called out tax avoidance schemes by wealthy individuals, too, arguing that the last update to the tax code by Republicans during the Trump administration amounted to “class warfare.”

“When Congress gets around to looking at Social Security and the housing crisis, it’s going to find that the Trump class warfare has devastated the budget and made it impossible to come together and pass real solutions,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said during a September hearing.

COVID 2024: Isn’t it time to get our shot together?

In a year when a U.S. election, foreign wars, local corruption and global climate crises seem like life-and-death matters, there’s another issue.

Life and death.

COVID and health.

Of course, if we’re bored reading about MoPox, EEE or other ailments, maybe we’ve lost a sense of urgency about COVID, which has become endemic – still with us, in some form. COVID changed the world, making Zoom meetings and social distancing familiar, and working from home routine for some jobs.

Somewhere between surrender and pandemic fatigue, we can feel lazy, “sick and tired,” or resentful of instructions we give our own kids: “wash your hands,” “wipe your nose,” “cover your mouth.”

But there can be dire health consequences if we stop obeying our own rules and think the risks are acceptable.

True, some who contract it have few symptoms; it’s an inconvenience. Some have a cough and/or a fever that sidelines them for a week or more. Others, mostly the chronically ill or seniors, are so severely affected they’re hospitalized and can die.

The number of COVID hospitalizations and fatalities has dropped a lot since 2020, and fewer test kits are sought, isolating after infection is sporadic, and masks have almost vanished. However, COVID cases have been surging, too – the virus is found in wastewater throughout the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And this summer, the rate of COVID hospitalizations was double that of last summer, and COVID deaths occurred twice as often as in the spring. Then, a Gallup poll showed that 59% of U.S. adults say the pandemic is “over.”

But it’s changing, repeatedly. The COVID virus evolves frequently, so some assume vaccinations will be obsolete by winter anyway But that doesn’t mean we let protection fade.

“New strains have emerged already—in August, KP.3.1.1 became the dominant strain, accounting for 36.8% of cases, according to the CDC’s Nowcast, which provides model-based early estimates,” said Katy Endress, Director of Epidemiology & Clinical Services at the Peoria City/County Health Department. “It has surpassed KP.3 (which overtook KP.2 earlier this summer). However, the new shots will continue to help protect against severe illness even if the virus mutates and additional strains appear.

“COVID-19 vaccines are updated to give you the best protection from the currently circulating strains,” she continued. “Pfizer’s and Moderna’s updated mRNA vaccines were approved in August for everyone ages 12 and older, and each has a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) emergency use authorization (EUA) for infants and children ages 6 months through 11 years. The mRNA vaccines target a SARS-CoV-2 strain called KP.2.”

Endress says the vaccinations are safe. Before vaccines are made available to everyday people, the FDA assesses findings from clinical trials to ensure they meet the FDA’s safety and effectiveness standards, and the agency keeps working to keep up.

“The FDA also authorized an updated COVID vaccine from Novavax for everyone 12 and older,” Endress said. “That shot targets another strain—JN.1. JN.1 was the dominant strain in May but was surpassed in June by a collection of other Omicron virus strains, including KP.2.”

Unlike other vaccinations the public has long accepted – including MMR (measles, mumps, rubella), DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis) and PCV (pneumonia) – COVID vaccinations aren’t yet required for school, and parents getting the shot for their children is fading, according to Chicago pediatrician Scott Goldstein told KFF Health News.

“The most important thing we do, you could argue, is vaccinating kids,” he said.

Yet only about 15% of eligible kids in the United States got the shot last year.

It’s also still vital for high-risk individuals to get the vaccination. Take the shot now.

“Everyone ages 6 months and older should get the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible,” says Endress, who adds that the vaccination can be part of preparing for winter.

“There is no recommended waiting period between getting a COVID-19 vaccine and other vaccines,” she says. “You can get a COVID-19 vaccine and other vaccines, including a flu and/or RSV vaccine, at the same visit.”

Sometimes, it's good to know

Long before FOMO became an online acronym, Fear Of Missing Out was a mantra of generations of newspaper editors. That and another cliched journalism truism – “If your mother says she loves you, check it out” – shows why and how some stories are pursued.

It’s always good to know.

But being anxious to not miss something and yearning for verification can lead to “pack journalism” and unjustified coverage. Years ago, I was an environmental reporter, and an editor saw stories about grain-bin explosions and wondered why I wasn’t covering this. He told me to check it out.

I spent a day talking to farmers, the Farm Bureau and a college ag teacher and was told such accidents can result from grain dust in an enclosed space, a spark and oxygen. When I nodded and said that seemed common, one guy looked at me like I had a “We love corn blight” ballcap and said “Obviously,” noting that farmers take precautions and such explosions are less frequent than years ago “no matter what you see on TV.”

My editor said, “Oh,” and shrugged. “Good to know.”

That’s a roundabout way of explaining my response to an incident in Illinois where people at an indoor ice rink were sickened and hospitalized. It seems that ice resurfacing machines and other equipment at indoor ice rinks have been linked to carbon monoxide (CO) risks to skaters or onlookers. I thought this could be an isolated incident unlikely to reoccur, but then found that some states have recognized the safety hazard and are addressing the risk. So, it could be both rare and an early warning.

Five years ago Center Ice of DuPage, firefighters found CO levels were more than 200 pars per million and evacuated the rink because CO levels above 70 ppm can cause fatigue, headaches and nausea (and levels above 150 ppm people can become dizzy, faint or die).

Peoria’s best-known indoor ice rink is the Peoria Civic Center’s, and when contacted, PCC’s Kelsy Martin replied that, “We have not had any issues with air quality at any events with the ice in place. Typically, [such] issues occur in small buildings or spaces with lower roof lines. Our facility benefits from high ceilings and has multiple protective measures in place to ensure air quality. As plans continue to finalize with a new ice plant, we will certainly keep safety top of mind.”

High ceilings alone may not help much, since CO – an odorless, tasteless and colorless gas called the “silent killer” – has a specific gravity of 0.9657 compared to normal air’s 1.0, which means carbon monoxide is “lighter than air” and floats up to the cheap seats.

Elsewhere, the U.S. Ice Rink Association recommends periodic testing of rinks’ air and making necessary adjustments; Connecticut, New Hampshire and Wisconsin have non-binding guidelines on indoor air-quality at ice rinks; and Massachusetts, Minnesota and Rhode Island have relevant state regulations.

State Rep. Ryan Spain (R-73^rd Dist.) was contacted about the topic and replied, “I am not familiar with this issue, but would certainly be open to further research and possible legislative action.”

Emily Cahill, the Peoria Park District’s Executive Director of Parks and Recreation, is familiar with the issue and shared how it’s addressed at Owens Ice Center, where there’s a 24-hour air-quality monitor that measures gases.

“We do at least one daily building walk-through with our hand-held, air-quality monitor,” Cahill said, “When the Zamboni goes out, we have an overhead exhaust fan that draws out any potential fumes.”

Further, the District routinely verifies that the precautions and sensors are functioning.

“Our risk manager comes in, I believe, monthly and checks air quality and checks that our monitors are working correctly,” Cahill added.

Ah. Good to know.