Missouri poll supervisor worked with COVID-19

She died, nearly 2,000 voted at her location

Four days before Election Day, an election judge supervisor in Missouri who was scheduled to work the polls got her coronavirus test back. She was positive, a private lab told her on Oct. 30, which meant she had to quarantine for two weeks.

Instead, the St. Charles, Mo., resident worked the polls on Tuesday. She died soon after, the St. Charles County Department of Public Health said Thursday. Authorities have not made the woman's identity public.

Nearly 2,000 people voted that day at the polling site where the woman worked, but it's unclear whether anyone had direct contact with her.

Some St. Charles residents who voted at the polling station told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch they are angry.

“For me to show up and do my civic duty … and to be exposed in that instance when I have been as careful as I have,” said Maggie Pohlmeier, a doctor and mother, “I am completely irate.”

In the past week, the number of new coronavirus cases in Missouri rose 20.6 per cent. On Thursday, Missouri reported 3,553 new cases — its highest spike in weeks.

Voters who experience issues with their registration would talk with an election judge supervisor like this woman, St. Charles County Director of Elections Kurt Bahr said, though he did not know if any voter had interacted with her. She was one of two election judge supervisors at the location.

Epidemiologists are contacting her nine election co-workers, advising them to get tested. Contact tracers are in touch with the woman's relatives.

On Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had published new guidelines saying that those with positive tests could cast their ballots in person.

“Voters have the right to vote, regardless of whether they are sick or in quarantine,” the CDC website says. Under federal law, turning someone away from a polling site is illegal.

An updated guidance said: “Poll workers who are sick, have tested positive for COVID-19, or have recently had close contact with a person with COVID-19 should stay home.”

The county's poll workers, who were separated from voters by Plexiglas barriers, were required to wear masks or face shields at all times on election day, and the site was sanitized throughout the day.

The site also provided individual wrapped pens, said Catherine Eberle, a home health nurse who brought her children along. This made her feel “perfectly safe.”

But Eberle, 31, said the news of the ill worker has left her angry: “I wish more people would have more concern for other people around them, not just for themselves.”

County poll workers were not tested for the virus nor asked if they were positive before Election Day.