A person walks outside of the Voter Registration and Elections Office in DeKalb County during of the first day of early voting on Monday, March 2, 2020. Photo: The Georgia News Lab
By Tyler Estep
A second employee in the DeKalb County elections office recently tested positive for COVID-19, elections board chairman Sam Tillman said Monday.
Tillman said officials were notified of the temporary employee’s positive test on Friday. The elections office will likely be closed for the week, he said.
The news comes about two weeks after another temporary worker in the elections office tested positive, delaying the county’s certification of June 9’s primary election results.
After that initial diagnosis, elections employees potentially exposed to the infected worker had to test negative for COVID-19 before returning to work, Tillman said. The second employee now diagnosed with COVID-19 tested negative at the earlier date, he said.
The elections office will be sanitized this week.
Any extended closures would put even more pressure on DeKalb elections officials as they prepare for August’s runoff and November’s general elections. Like other counties across Georgia, DeKalb struggled with technical issues, long lines and large numbers of absentee ballots during last month’s widely panned primary.
Read the original story on AJC.com.
