Likely scenario this November: Masks required for poll workers, not for voters

Gov. Phil Murphy said today at his twice-a-week Covid briefing that he anticipates poll workers will face some Covid restrictions this November while voters are unlikely to be subject to any requirements, though he cautioned that nothing is yet set in stone.

“I don’t know that we’ve laid out the parameters for poll workers, but I’ll be very surprised if we’re not requiring them to wear masks,” Murphy said.

“We’ll work with the boards of elections on safety protocols for poll workers, but we don’t anticipate any restrictions being placed on voters,” added Parimal Garg, the governor’s chief counsel.

The probable plan is quite different from 2020, when the vast majority of the state voted by mail, and even from earlier this year, when Murphy required masks at polling locations for the state primary.

As Murphy and Garg both said, these potential policies are not official yet. But with in-person early voting set to begin in almost exactly a month, formal guidelines for poll workers and voters will have to be announced relatively soon.