Missouri poll worker kept COVID diagnosis mostly to herself

A Missouri election judge who came to work despite testing positive for the coronavirus died in her sleep after a 15-hour shift at the polls, the director of her county’s election office says

The woman worked Election Day as an election judge supervisor at Memorial Hall in Blanchette Park in the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles. Officials don’t yet know if COVID-19 was the cause of death. County officials didn’t release her name, citing privacy laws.

She tested positive on Oct. 30 but ignored advice to isolate and worked alongside nine other election judges. More than 1,800 people voted at the precinct. Judges were required to wear masks and were mostly behind a plastic glass barrier.

St. Charles County Election Authority Director Kurt Bahr said in a phone interview that the woman had previously worked several other elections, as had her sister at a different polling site. It was the sister who called Bahr’s office Wednesday to let him know of the woman’s death.

But Bahr says the sister didn’t know of the COVID-19 diagnosis.

“She was just as shocked,” Bahr says. “The family was unaware she had tested positive. As far as I understand, the only person that knew was the spouse of the judge.”

Bahr says that as an election judge, the woman would have shown up around 5 a.m. to help prepare the polling place; worked the entire time the polls were open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m.; then spent about an hour wrapping up.

She died in her sleep either late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Bahr says.

— AP