Masks optional for Galveston Co. voters
Galveston County voters will be allowed to enter polling sites and cast their ballots without a mask, under an executive order issued Friday by County Judge Mark Henry.
The Republican signed the order after a poll worker confronted him and his wife for notwearing masks while in League City on Tuesday. The poll worker told Henry that he had to wear a mask to vote. “That’s not true,” he responded, and left the voting site after casting his ballot.
“I was more than 20 feet from any person when the poll worker walked up to my wife and I and told us to put a mask on,” Henry said at a press conference Friday at the county headquarters, where hewas notwearing a mask. “It was somewhat ridiculous.”
The executive order allows sheriff’s deputies to issue a $1,000 fine to any poll worker
that turns away a voter for not wearing a mask. Henry said Galveston County District Attorney Jack Roady has agreed to prosecute violators.
Henry’s message to pollworkers was clear: “We put you on notice now that we’re going to take this seriously. You can’t stop someone from voting because you think they should be
wearing a mask.”
The county judge added that he received at least six other complaints of eligible voters being turned away from various voting locations across Galveston County since the early-voting period began Tuesday. He added that some polling locations that aren’t county- owned facilities have been enforcing mask wearing based on their right to do so as a private entity.
Dwight Sullivan, the county election administrator, said he had not received any reports that voting locations were stopping voters without masks from entering. He said that there were “10 or (fewer)” incidents where individual poll workers asked voters to wear masks at two different polling sites in League City and one in Galveston.
“No entity that I’m aware of stopped people from coming into their own building,” Sullivan said.
Sullivan told Henry that he reemphasized to poll workers after these reported incidents that voters can cast ballots without masks.
Henry was unsatisfied with that effort, prompting his executive order.
“My belief is this will fix the problem,” Henry said. “I do not think that any poll worker is go
ing to risk $1,000 out of their own pocket to make a point.”
The executive order does not appear to conflict with Gov. Greg Abbott’s statewide mask mandate, issued in July. Abbott’s order states that face coverings are not required for poll workers, poll watchers or election administrators, but rather “strongly encouraged.”
Henry believes his executive order encourages mask-wearing, but doesn’t compel anyone to do so. He said he was not worried about an adverse public health effect.
“That’s different than ‘You must wear a mask to vote here,’” Henry said. “We’re in compliance with CDC guidelines, which still state, (Wear a mask) ‘If you can’t maintain 6 feet.’”
The most recent guidance from the CDC recommends all people 2 and older wear a mask in public settings “when around people who don’t live in their household.”
Sullivan said polling sites throughout the county are equipped with hand sanitizer machines, and that masks and face shields are being offered to any voterswho request one, aswell as cotton swabs to vote on touch screens.
Poll workers are also disinfecting voting equipment throughout the day, and machines are spaced apart to encourage safe distancing
Henry Trochesset, the Galveston County sheriff, said thatwhile he would not station deputies at polling sites, he encouraged anyone turned away from a polling site for not wearing a mask to call 409-766-2322 to report these incidents.
The decision to issue a fine to poll workers would be determined on a case-by-case basis, he said.
“If it’s a mask issue orwhatever the issue, I just want to make sure the citizens of our county, there’s nothing prohibiting them from getting in there to vote,” Trochesset said.