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Despite relentless efforts to keep election sites safe, some election officials who came into contact with voters on polling day tested positive for the coronavirus, including more than 20 in Missouri and cases in New York City, Iowa, Indiana and Virginia.
Infections cannot be definitively linked to polling stations. Since COVID-19 is spreading rapidly in the United States, there is no way to yet determine whether in-person voting on election day contributed to the outbreak, public health experts have said.
Nonetheless, infections among polling officers raise concerns due to the number of people who have passed through voting sites, who have implemented social distancing rules, erected protective barriers and stocked disinfectant, masks , gloves and other safety equipment. In most places, polling officers were required to wear masks.
The cases emerged as election workers continued to count thousands of ballots. As the manual count of the presidential race began in Georgia, the state’s top election official went into quarantine after his wife tested positive for the coronavirus.
In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which is in a county considered a national hotspot for viruses, an election official who worked at an early voting site then tested positive.
“I’m actually surprised we don’t have more cases,” said Linn County Election Commissioner Joel Miller, who noted that several county employees from his apartment building tested positive last week. “It actually seems a bit of a stretch that we don’t have more, but they might not be telling us.”
Election officials in Jackson County, Missouri, a suburb of Kansas City, appear to be the hardest hit so far, with about 28 staff members testing positive in the past two weeks.
Tammy Brown, head of the Jackson County Election Commission, said her staff urged voters who felt bad to avoid entering, even though she suspects not everyone was listening. The council processed nearly 200,000 voters, including more than 60,000 who voted early.
“We, as election officials, all knew we were in danger,” Brown said. “I don’t think it shocked any of us.”
With high transmission rates in Missouri, health officials are not ready to link cases to polling stations. They say workers could have been infected anywhere.
The county has proposed a drive-thru vote for people with COVID-19 or who were in quarantine due to contact with an infected person. When part-time workers fell ill, full-time electoral board staff worked at the drive-thru.
It is difficult to trace cases to the polling stations because the virus manifests itself in different ways and some people never show symptoms. Infections also increase as people gather with extended family or friends and return to more crowded public places.
The United States has recorded more than 10.8 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 245,000 deaths.
While this spread increases the likelihood that polling officers have contracted the disease elsewhere, there have been calls for their co-workers to be quarantined and voters to be tested as a precaution.
In New York City, more than 1,600 people who voted at a site in the Hudson Valley on election day were asked to get tested after an election worker tested positive. Officials said colleagues who had maintained contact with the worker will be tested, but described the risk to voters as minimal because the person wore a mask, kept distances and followed other safety measures.
Likewise, officials in Carroll County in Virginia said two election officials from different ridings tested positive. A health official said that as both were in their contagious period on election day, tests were offered to workers and voters.
Virginia state officials across the state had masks, face shields, gloves, hand sanitizer and other supplies for the polling stations, and they trained people in safety practices said Jessica Bowman, deputy commissioner of the Virginia Election Department.
It may take several weeks for the effect of the national in-person vote to be known. Polling stations that used security measures could have dramatically minimized transmission rates, perhaps making them less risky than going to a restaurant with friends, said Mr. Kumi Smith, an assistant professor in the division of epidemiology from the University of Minnesota.
“A super-broadcaster event is much easier to identify when you’re still at an early stage of an outbreak or when there’s a really low-key event that really doesn’t look like anything else,” she said. declared. “But given the true range of activities going on here, I would probably be a little more skeptical of anyone saying this is definitely a very diffuse event.
There were no major reports of security breaches or unsafe voting conditions.
States had different rules for masks. But even in places with warrants, officials were reluctant to demand face masks when voting. Instead, they went for a strong recommendation or offered options like curbside voting or voting booths away from others.
In Indiana, a poll worker who then tested positive did not show symptoms, practiced social distancing and “wore a mask at all times” on polling day, said Jay Phelps, county clerk by Bartholomew. As a precaution, seven colleagues are in quarantine for two weeks.
He said election officials were spending a lot of time and money on making polling stations as safe as possible. Polling officers wore masks and machines, tables and doorknobs were constantly sanitized.
“We worked really hard to make sure every polling station had protocols in place,” Phelps said.
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Izaguirre reported from Lindenhurst, New York. Associated Press writers Michelle R. Smith in Providence, Rhode Island; Matthew Barakat in Falls Church, Virginia; Ryan J. Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; Jim Salter in O’Fallon, Missouri; and Casey Smith in Indianapolis contributed to this report.
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The Associated Press’s coverage of voting rights is supported in part by Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
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