Clerk Office Worker Tests Positive For Covid

(Updated) The secretary of the state is sending people to help train New Haveners to plow through a data backlog involving absentee ballots after a Covid-19 case send 12 city workers into quarantine.

New Haven requested help after an employee of the City-Town Clerk’s Office — which along with the Registrar of Voters Office counts, processes, and certifies election ballots — received a positive result on a Covid-19 test.

That employee started showing symptoms last Thursday and went home, not returning since, City-Town Clerk Michael Smart told the Independent Wednesday.

No one else in the office has since shown displayed symptoms of Covid-19, Smart said. He said it is believed the employee contacted the virus from someone outside city government.

The city has placed 12 workers who had contact with that individual on a 14-day quarantine, according to city Health Director Maritza Bond.
Nine of those 12 were working in the clerk’s office, while three others work in other departments, according to Smart.

That leaves six workers still in the clerk’s office working on election-related data-processing, said Smart, who said he was not exposed. (The office hired a short-term crew of workers to work on the election because of the historic high demand for absentee ballots.)

“We have half a crew,” Smart said, so he has appealed to the secretary of the state to send people to New Haven to help his office scan ballots to enter in the state voter database.

Meanwhile, the office has a backlog of over 4,000 absentee ballots it needs to enter into a state voter database.

At first the city stated it was asking the secretary of the state to send people to New Haven to fill in to help finish that job.

Chief Administrative Officer Sean Matteson clarified Wednesday afternoon that he has temporarily assigned city workers to pitch in.

Meanwhile the secretary of the state will help as well, said office spokesperson Gabe Rosenberg.

“Our office is going to train the people they provide for us. We’re waiting on them to give us the people. We’re going to train them. Then we’re going to get those voters entered into CVRS [database], belatedly,” Rosenberg told the Independent. The last point referenced the fact that New Haven lagged behind other Connecticut communities in entering information about returned absentee ballots into the database — meaning thousands of voters did not have confirmation on Election Day that their ballots had been received and counted.

“The City-Town Clerk’s facilities have been cleaned and disinfected to ensure that we can reduce the spread of Covid-19,” Bond stated in a mayoral release issued Wednesday.