At a Chicago polling place near Wrigley Field, Margaret Croke, a first-time candidate running for state representative, held one of her campaign signs with gloved hands, keeping a healthy distance from voters.
Normally, Croke would have been handing out campaign literature for voters to read as they waited. But with the spread of COVID-19, she wasn’t taking any chances — just one of many adjustments, small and large, to accommodate an election Tuesday amid a worsening pandemic.
Her opponent, State Rep. Yoni Pizer, went even further, deciding in the final days of the campaign to forgo public events altogether. Outside of the polling place, notes taped to his campaign signs explained “why we’re not here.”
“We just felt it was super important that we put the safety of our community above any political concerns,” Pizer told CNN.
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But some voters did show up to vote in person even as restaurants, bars and schools in Illinois closed and state officials urged people to limit their trips outside of their homes. By Tuesday afternoon, the line outside of the polling place stretched for blocks, as poll workers enforced a one-in, one-out policy to encourage distancing inside.
“I decided to come out to vote today because it’s my civic duty to do so as an American,” said Art Garcia, who works at a hospital in the area.
Rachel Tarr, 28, said she felt comfortable with the precautions being taken for voters, including poll workers wearing gloves, and availability of hand sanitizer and wipes.
“I thought they did a good job,” Tarr said.
But the process did not run smoothly everywhere. In suburban Chicago, election judge Kim Inman arrived at her polling place Tuesday to find that the hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes promised by Cook County officials had not arrived. Meanwhile, the precinct was operating with just half its election judges, after some had dropped out “due to sickness or fear,” Inman said.
By the afternoon, however, voters had stepped in — donating their own Wet Wipes and travel-sized hand sanitizer to the polling place.
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