CHICAGO — Gov. J.B. Pritzker shut down schools, restaurants and bars. He canceled large public gatherings and pleaded with people to practice social distancing as the number of new coronavirus cases in Illinois doubled day after day. The March 17 election was a different story.

Pritzker dismissed concerns raised by election officials from across the state who feared that in-person voting during a pandemic created a public health risk, particularly for gray-haired election judges. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s decision to postpone his state’s election on the same day didn’t sway Pritzker’s resolve, either.

Pritzker decreed that Illinois’ primary must go on. So, it did.

That decision never made sense to me. The disconnect in logic was reason enough to urge my elderly parents to stay home on election day, warning them that people would die for doing their civic duty.

We all know what happened. A “tsunami” of normally reliable election judges, older folks more likely to die from COVID-19, didn’t show up to tend to voters. Dozens of private nursing homes that double as polling places refused to open their doors to voters. Illinoisans went to the polls. Since then, coronavirus cases and deaths spiked, particularly in African American enclaves.

While it’s probably impossible to determine if the decision to go ahead with the election had fatal consequence, comparing names on the COVID-19 death toll with Chicago’s election judge roster hints at the invisible risk people took casting ballots at polling places.

Revall Burke, a 60-year-old city worker, served as an election judge in the 60620 ZIP code on Chicago’s Southwest Side, home to the most confirmed COVID-19 cases (359 reported cases as of Saturday).

Five days later, Burke drove himself to the hospital, where he died from COVID-19.

‘Thank You For Your Service’

A hardworking, health-conscious ex-Marine, Revall Monty Burke volunteered to run block club committees, always had encouraging words — and sometimes candy bars — for kids playing on his block. He nagged his big brother to go to the doctor, jogged to stay in shape and made friends everywhere he went, his family said.

“He was loving and caring, a family man,” said his son, Malcolm Burke. “Everybody felt his presence in the room because he always brought positive energy.”

A veteran election judge in the 17th Ward’s 27th Precinct sensed that about Revall Burke, a rookie joining her team for the first time.

“When I called him about the election, we stayed on the phone for an hour. We hadn’t even met, and I knew that we were gonna be good friends,” said the 65-year-old woman from Auburn Gresham, who asked not to be identified for fear that other pesky reporters as well as telemarketers might track her down.

In the days leading up to the election, her daughter begged her to stay home out of fear the 65-year-old might catch COVID-19 while handing out ballots in the 17th Ward’s 27th Precinct.

“She said she would pay me whatever the election was paying if I didn’t go in. And I had to explain to her that I don’t do it for the money,” the veteran election judge said.

“I do it because of the line at the bottom of the letter given every election judge that says, ‘Thank you for your service.’ I’m deadly serious about serving my community in something so important as voting.”

Virus or no virus, if the governor said the election was on, she was going to be there “against daughter’s orders.” On March 16, the day before polls opened, she watched election officials on the TV news saying voting would be run as safely as possible, against a B-roll backdrop of early-voting poll workers wearing gloves and masks.

The veteran election judge promised her daughter she would do everything she could to be as “safe as possible.” That was a bit more difficult than planned when voting equipment sent to the her polling place didn’t include gloves, masks, disinfectant wipes and not nearly enough hand sanitizer.

“I called to report that we didn’t get any gloves. I wrote it down, too,” the veteran election judge said. “The next morning, all we got was an envelope with a small bottle of hand sanitizer in it. … If there was any [coronavirus] spreading going around, that’s one thing the election people were remiss in.”

The coronavirus threat seemed even closer to the 27th Precinct polling place when one of judges told election day co-workers she was related to Illinois’ first (and, at the time, only) COVID-19 fatality.

Without enough protective gear, the 27th Precinct election crew took care of each other. Burke and the veteran election judge brought sanitizing wipes to clean the pens voters used to mark up ballots, and extra protective gloves to share.

“We were all being as cognizant as we could be about making sure that area was as safe as it could be,” she said. “I told everybody, nobody is going to touch my pen but me. And believe me, nobody did.”

At every meal break, the judges sat two seats apart. Longtime poll worker Audrey Harmon wore gloves, kept a bottle of hand sanitizer in her pocket and kept her ink pen to herself.

“I kept a safe distance from people — but, you know, you can only do so much. People are gonna do what they want, and we have no control over their behavior,” Harmon said.

“We can only look out for ourselves and our own safety. We can ask people to stay a safe distance away. But they don’t. We can trust God and pray and keep going.”

Harmon and the veteran election judge, both of the age considered high risk for serious coronavirus consequences, worked closely with Burke as 113 voters stopped in to cast ballots on election day.

“He was real cooperative, did everything we asked and was eager to learn,” Harmon said. “I think he really enjoyed himself.”

Burke had a ball, his election co-workers said, even spinning old-school “stepping songs” and Barry White jams to help pass time.

“We laughed, we joked, and we kept that day flying by,” the veteran election judge said. “He was really cool. I left knowing I had a lifelong friend.”

‘It Happened So Fast’

A few days after the election, Burke came down with what he thought was just cold, his older brother said.

“He was calling the doctors and they told him to quarantine himself,” Nathaniel Burke said.

Malcolm Burke said the last time he spoke with his father, on March 22, there didn’t seem to be any reason to worry about him.

“He sounded perfectly fine except for having a little trouble breathing,” he said. “But he wasn’t gasping for air or anything like that.”

Revall Burke had diabetes, but he kept it in check with vigilance that included regularly reminding big brother to go to the doctor for regular check-ups.

“He was always worried about health and all that, staying in good physical shape, eating right and taking care of your body,” Nathaniel Burke said. “He always asked to go running with me. I’m a year older than him, and I smoke, but I could still beat him. We’d always laugh about that, and he’d say, ‘You’ve got alcohol coming out of your pores and smell like cigarettes.’ And I’d say, ‘But I still beat you.'”

On March 23, two days after doctors told Revall Burke to self-quarantine, he told his brother: “Man, I got a fever.”

Malcolm Burke said his father still wasn’t overwhelmed by flu-like symptoms. “He drove himself to the hospital,” he said.

Not long after he arrived, Nathaniel Burke said, doctors sedated Revall Burke and placed him on a ventilator.

“It happened so fast. He wasn’t in the hospital for 12 hours, and they said his kidneys shut down,” Nathaniel Burke said. “Just like that, he was on life support. It freaked the whole family out.”

Eight days later, Revall Burked died. He left behind six children, a giant extended family who loved him and too many friends to count, including his new election buddy the veteran election judge.

“I still can’t wrap my head around it. I look at that man and I thought this is going to be my friend from now on, and he’s already gone,” she said. “Everyone we know is with us for a season, and for us the season was very short. But I’m not going to forget him.”

‘They Don’t Give A Damn About Us’

On April 1, an emotional Mayor Lori Lightfoot stepped to the podium to deliver sad news.

“It is with a heavy heart that I am here to announce that Chicago has lost one of our own city employees to COVID-19,” the mayor said.

She didn’t mention Revall Burke by name name or that the longtime city worker’s latest assignment required him to walk all over the city issuing tickets to parking and city-sticker scofflaws.

Lightfoot called his death a sobering reminder that the increasing tally of coronavirus fatalities is more than just a troubling statistic.

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“They are people whose lives have been forever changed. … While this particular case directly touches our city workforce, it is not lost on any of us that tragedies like this have been happening across the state and across the world. And will continue to happen here at home over the coming weeks,” the mayor said. “This disease is deadly. It does not discriminate, and no one is immune.”

It wasn’t until April 6 that Revall Burke’s election day co-workers learned of his death from a tribute posted on Ald. David Moore’s Facebook page.

“Revall committed himself as a precinct captain in the 17th Ward Democratic Organization for many years serving our residents and working the election polls,” the post read. “Stay Safe and Stay Home. Do it in remembrance of this good brother.”

Harmon said she was shocked by the news — and that neither election officials nor the alderman personally told her or any of the other 27th Precinct election judges that a fellow poll worker got sick with COVID-19 — and died.

“The election was three weeks ago, and didn’t nobody at least give us an alert. Seeing that we were in close contact with him, they should have let us know,” Harmon said. “It’s like they don’t give a damn about us, or our health.”

The truth is less cynical. Chicago election officials didn’t know about Revall Burke’s COVID-19-related death until I called to tell them last week. As of Sunday, they did get reports of two other poll workers — an election judge and coordinator — who tested positive for the coronavirus.

Election board spokesman James Allen wouldn’t say which polling places those employees worked, or if they were dead or alive. Election officials have alerted election judges who worked alongside the two coronavirus-positive poll workers they knew about, Allen said.

As of Monday, election officials have sent out letters to election day voters, polling staff, election inspectors and trucking companies that delivered voting equipment in 13 precincts where people may have come into contact with COVID-19-positive election judges while casting ballots.

The primary election’s effect on public health seems to be a topic that elected officials don’t want to discuss.

Lightfoot’s administration said the primary election’s influence on the spread of coronavirus isn’t a “correlation that we’ve tracked at the city of Chicago. You may want to reach out to the state to see if they have that data.”

When asked if there’s any “evidence that holding the primary election spread the virus further,” Pritzker dodged the question at a news conference. Instead, he urged other states to consider all mail-in-ballots — the same recommendation election board members made before sending Illinois voters to the polls.

State Sen. Julie Morrison (D-Lake Forest) told the Tribune the state “totally dodged a bullet” because the primary occurred four days before Pritzker issued a statewide stay-at-home order.

That was before I told Morrison about Revall Burke. On Monday, the senator said she was referring to the timing of the election. If the primary was held during a stay-home order, she said people would have had to “make a particularly difficult decision on whether to vote when they’re not supposed to be out.”

Morrison said the decision to go ahead with the March 17 primary was “above my pay grade,” but she’s looking ahead to the November general election, preparing a bill expected to be introduced during the spring legislative session that would send mail-in ballots to every registered voter.

Plenty of politicians object to that idea for too many reasons that are not life-threatening— the cost of postage and the time it takes to count paper ballots, among other things.

Come November, if there isn’t a change in how we cast ballots during this pandemic, do what’s right: Vote ’em out by mail. Save lives.

Mark Konkol, recipient of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for local reporting and Emmy-nominated producer, was a producer, writer and narrator for the “Chicagoland” docu-series on CNN. He was a consulting producer on the Showtime documentary, “16 Shots.”

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