Judge orders NC county to reopen polling site after COVID-19 depletes workers

The board of elections in Rockingham County scrambled to find volunteers to run one of the county’s polling places after a judge ruled Friday that the site must be open for the last day of early voting.

The polling place, at the Salvation Army in Reidsville, was closed Wednesday after three poll workers tested positive for coronavirus. With other workers at the site ordered to remain quarantined, the county board of elections decided to keep it closed and direct voters to one of the county’s other three early voting sites in Eden, Madison and Wentworth.

But the N.C. Democratic Party filed suit seeking to have the Reidsville polling place reopened. Superior Court Judge Ed Wilson agreed, telling the county that under state law if one early-voting site in the county is open, they all must remain open.

Wilson ordered the county to open the Reidsville site at 8 a.m. Saturday.

But it wasn’t immediately clear Friday who would staff it.

During the court hearing, Wilson twice urged the parties, including the elections board and the Democratic Party, to go outside and come to an agreement.

Rochelle Tucker, who works for the city of Reidsville and also heads the Reidsville NAACP Political Action Committee, said the N.C. Democratic Party asked the board of elections to shut down the Eden early voting site at noon Saturday and have those workers come to Reidsville to work from 12 to 7:30 p.m. The board wouldn’t agree.

Instead, the board of elections members called a local busing company, Pelham Transportation in Reidsville, to see if it would be willing to drive people from Reidsville to Wentworth’s polling location hourly on Saturday. Tucker said the Democrats wouldn’t agree to that during a pandemic.

“This is not about going to Wentworth,” Tucker said. “It’s not that far, but we want what’s fair. It’s convenient for people over there, but there is nothing convenient for people over here. We’re not asking for special favors.”

In the end, Wilson called on the elections board to staff the polling place with volunteers. By Friday evening, the county had lined up enough workers to get the site reopened, said Janet Odell, the interim Rockingham County Board of Elections director.

“Voters will need to be patient because only one has experience working an early voting site,” Odell wrote in an email. “The others work Election Day, which may help some. Voters will just have to be patient.”

Twenty other county poll workers were exposed to the three who tested positive.

Odell told The News & Observer on Thursday that voters who came through the Reidsville site should not be concerned for their health because they weren’t at the location long. She added that poll workers wore masks and followed COVID-19 guidelines.

Odell said that the site had been cleaned, but remained closed because the county couldn’t find volunteers.

Vacant job

Rockingham County’s board of elections has been making local headlines all month after voting 4-1 to remove its deputy director, Amy Simpson, in early October. She was the top official since the director had retired.

Simpson had worked for the county elections board longer than any other employee, said Patrick Gannon, spokesman for the State Board of Elections.

“She had been serving as the most experienced employee, and that left the office with inexperienced workers, both full and part-time,” Gannon said.

Simpson’s position remains vacant. In mid-October after her position hadn’t been filled, the state board intervened and called on former elections director Odell to come out of retirement and help. The board named Odell interim director. She has a long history with the office dating back to 1979.

Gannon said Odell has been working to secure volunteers not just for the Reidsville site but for Election Day.

He added that the board didn’t leave Odell alone to handle this task. She has been working for several weeks with Laura Dell, one of the state board’s eight security and support technicians.

Gannon said that the boards have been working through a state website to find volunteers for early voting sites, but finding last-minute volunteers this week had been fruitless. That was before Wilson made his ruling Friday.

“We hope that the county board of elections continues to work very hard toward a successful election in Rockingham County,” Gannon said.

This story was originally published October 30, 2020 at 7:31 PM.