COVID Outbreak Hits San Mateo Co. Elections Office Days Before Primary

SAN MATEO COUNTY, CA — A COVID-19 outbreak is happening at the worst time for the San Mateo County Elections Office.

Just days before Election Day on June 7, at least 38 of the office’s 503 employees are out with COVID-19, according to Jim Irizarry, the county’s assistant chief elections officer.

The office has “sufficient staff to redeploy to various areas of operation to ensure that we have a smooth election in all aspects,” Irizarry said to Patch in an interview Thursday.

A majority of the employees out sick work with deploying voting equipment in the warehouse, according to Irizarry.

Irizarry stressed that all of the county’s in-person voting centers will remain open, and that a vast majority of residents are expected to vote by mail. In the gubernatorial recall election last September, 95 percent of residents in San Mateo County cast their ballot by mail.

“We should have a fairly smooth election, notwithstanding that COVID is a challenge,” Irizarry said. “Having a reduction in labor force in a very important part of the operation is challenging. I’d be remiss to say if it wasn’t. The beauty of it is, we’re prepared because we have depth in our staffing.”

Irizarry claimed that a majority of the positive cases resulted from staffers carpooling to work.

“A lot of those units that carpool had a large positivity rate,” he said.

Irizarry said that the county invested $150,000 on COVID-19 protection for material such as plexiglass and masks. He said the office has social distancing protocols and institutes remote work when possible.

“We need to be prepared with contingency plans to handle just about anything that comes up on Election Day or before Election Day,” Irizarry said. “That’s the nature of elections, is to expect the unexpected and be able to respond appropriately.”