Nearly 4 in 10 Illinois voters cast their Nov. 8 general election ballots before Election Day last month, reflecting an increasing trend toward voting by mail and early voting, the Illinois State Board of Elections said.
The state board, in certifying the election results Monday, said 21% of the more than 4.1 million votes cast were submitted at early-voting sites while nearly 18% were cast through the mail.
Advertisement
That represents an increase from the last midterm election in 2018 when 34% of the ballots overall were cast before Election Day — 25% through early voting and 9% by mail.
The state has moved to make vote-by-mail a more accessible option, even allowing voters the ability to request to be permanently added to receive mail-in ballots in future elections.
Advertisement
Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.
Despite the increase in early balloting, the 51% turnout from a pool of more than 8.1 million registered voters statewide represented the fourth-lowest midterm election turnout in 40 years.
Turnout in 2018 was more than 57%. The three previous years with lower turnout were in 2006, when voter turnout was 48.6%, 2014, when voter turnout was 49.2%, and 2010 when voter turnout was 50.5%. The highest in the past four decades was in 1982, when it was 65%. That was the first election of single-member state House districts under the Cutback Amendment that reduced the size of the Illinois House from 177 members to 118.
Voting by mail has steadily increased in elections since 2004 and reached a high in 2020 when it represented one-third of all the votes counted — a result largely attributable to health concerns arising from the pandemic. Coupled with early voting, two-thirds of the ballots counted in that presidential election year were not cast on Election Day.
The state election board’s certification of the results also confirms the passage of a proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution that enshrines the right of employees to collectively bargain within the state’s primary governing document.
While it fell short of gaining the 60% support of those voting directly on the proposition, it was ratified under the alternative method of getting more than 50% backing from all ballots counted. The amendment received yes votes on 53.4% of the roughly 4.1 million votes cast.
With Democrats sweeping all statewide constitutional offices, Comptroller Susana Mendoza, who won a special election for the post in 2016, was the top statewide vote-getter. Mendoza received more than 2.33 million votes in defeating Republican Shannon Teresi, 57% to 41%.
rap30@aol.com
