An elderly woman quarantined with a MRSA infection voted

April 9, 2015 at 6:59p.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

While a majority of people eligible to vote in the May primary won’t bother casting ballots, an elderly woman quarantined with a MRSA infection at a nursing home insisted on voting in the city’s 4th Ward council race.

“Never before had that happened in the 27 years I’ve been doing this,” Joyce Kale-Pesta, director of the Mahoning County Board of Elections, said Thursday. “This was a very rare case for us.”

The woman’s vote will count, but it took a little work to accomplish that.

The Mayo Clinic describes MRSA [methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] as a contagious infection caused by a strain of staph bacteria that is resistant to the antibiotics commonly used to treat ordinary staph infections. It is prevalent in nursing homes, according to the clinic’s website.

Board workers were at a West Side nursing home earlier this week to provide ballots to those who want to vote early when the woman with MRSA requested one, Kale-Pesta said.

The woman voted – the only race on her ballot is the Democratic primary for 4th Ward council – and a nurse with her put the paper ballot in a plastic biohazard envelope sealed at the top, and gave it to election workers, Kale-Pesta said.

Elections officials asked the county health department to open it, but health officials declined, Kale-Pesta said.

But Dr. Joseph Ohr, the county’s deputy coroner and forensic pathologist, agreed to open the ballot.