Feb 22, 2020 3 min read

She amassed thousands of votes over a long stint in Washington County politics, but when Judith L. Fisher died Friday at age 80, the coroner’s office sought information in locating family members.

Fisher was pronounced dead in her home at 6:30 a.m., and although a public information report issued Friday afternoon about her passing said her death is under investigation by East Washington Borough police, it does not appear to be suspicious. The report also said she died of natural causes just after 5 a.m.

Her last Facebook post – a photo of a snowfall – appeared Feb. 7. On May 15 of last year, she mourned the birthday of her late husband, Robert E. Fisher Sr., who had died a year earlier. The couple wed in the Mon Valley in 1957.

“I know he is now with our beautiful daughter, Cara, in God’s heavenly garden,” she wrote. “They are both smiling down upon me and watching over me.”

Cara Fisher-Chalmers of Fredericksburg, Va., a school teacher, died in 2015.

“The Washington County Democratic Committee is sad to learn of the passing of Judith Fisher,” wrote Christina Proctor, first vice chairman of the organization.

“Judith and her late husband, Robert, were both very active in the Democratic Party for many years. Judith served as a long-time Jury Commissioner of Washington County, as well as an elected Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee women for many years.”

Democrats expressed, “our deepest condolences to her family,” Proctor’s statement concluded.

Fisher was Washington County’s last Democratic jury commissioner. The board of commissioners abolished the Democratic and Republican-held offices – twice – in 2012 and 2013.

In the days before computerized databases, jury commissioners would select, mainly from voter registration rolls, members of a jury pool and send out summonses.

After the first vote, the state Supreme Court struck down a law that allowed counties to terminate the office because the Legislature “bundled” it with unrelated bills, hiding the action from public scrutiny.

In 2013, Washington and Greene counties were among 42 of the state’s 67 counties to end the jury commissioners’ posts. The office never again appeared here on the ballot and court administration took over the task of summoning potential jurors.

Commonwealth Court later declined to issue an injunction on the matter.

Foreclosed from that front, Fisher ran in 2015 for county commissioner, but finished third in a field where two candidates were to be nominated.

She also sought a Democratic nomination last year for the register of wills office, but lost.

Fisher came close to being elected Washington County prothonotary, but lost by seven votes to Phyllis Matheny, a Democrat who had secured a Republican write-in nomination in 2003.

Fisher litigated the outcome, but Matheny’s slender lead held up in court.

The Washington County coroner’s office asked anyone who can help locate relatives to call 724-228-6785.