The number of voters casting their ballots before Election Day in Chicago and some surrounding counties is closely tracking the voter turnout in the 2018 midterm election, according to several election officials.
Through Monday, 131,165 Chicago voters had cast early votes or returned mail ballots, compared with 132,065 at the same point four years earlier, the last time Illinois had a race for governor and other statewide offices. Election officials in Chicago said pre-Election Day turnout has increased in recent weeks after turnout about a month ago had seemed low.
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“Now we’re looking healthier,” Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesperson Max Bever said. “Compared to 2018, we’re nipping at the heels.”
One week ahead of Election Day, Nov. 8, voters are increasingly using mail ballots to make their selections, a trend experts say could point to permanent changes.
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Chicago voters already have requested more than 200,000 vote-by-mail ballots as of Monday, a total second only to the 2020 presidential election, which occurred at the peak of the coronavirus pandemic, Bever said.
“We’re in a period of transition now where people are learning to vote in various ways,” said Christopher Mooney, a political scientist at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Increased use of vote by mail and people’s acceptance of it is an offshoot of the pandemic 2020 election year. In future elections, the option for people to automatically get a vote-by-mail ballot rather than request one each election is likely to increase as an option.
Like in Chicago, mail ballots accounted for the majority of votes so far cast in Will County, according to Charles Pelkie, who is the chief of staff for Will County Clerk Lauren Staley Ferry. Pelkie compared this year’s preelection turnout with the 2018 contest.
“We are on par to come close or maybe match that,” Pelkie said.
Voting was similarly on track with past midterm turnout in Lake County, with more voters expected as Election Day draws closer, Lake County Clerk Robin O’Connor said.
“A lot of people tend to early vote the weekend before an election,” O’Connor said. “We’re ready for that.”
The number of vote-by-mail ballots returned in DuPage County by Tuesday dwarfed the number returned at the same point during the 2018 election. Voters had returned 44,950 as of Tuesday morning, compared with 17,006 the week before the 2018 general election, according to data shared by DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek’s office.
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Though the number of in-person early votes cast had dropped by nearly 10,000, pre-Election Day voting is up about 18,000 due to the spike in mail-in ballots.
“Promoting mail voting and doubling the number of Early Voting locations has us off to a strong start,” she wrote in an email statement.
The 2022 general election will be Illinois’ first major election since legislation expanding vote-by-mail and mail drop box voting programs passed, Chicago Votes Co-Executive Director Stevie Valles said.
“A lot of the policies that are in place that make it easier for people to participate are showing their proof now,” he said.
He expects turnout to continue to grow through Election Day. Voting advocacy groups such as Chicago Votes have focused their attention on the week of the election, and many voters will continue to wait for Election Day to cast their ballots, he added.
But strong preelection turnout doesn’t necessarily mean the election’s final turnout will be strong, Mooney warned, as more people voting early could mean fewer casting their ballots on Election Day.
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“I think you’re probably going to get kind of average,” said Kent Redfield, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield. Only the final turnout after Election Day will tell if expansions to voting access actually affected voters, he added.
“If all you’re doing is rearranging the furniture, you really haven’t done anything in terms of participation,” Redfield said.
For this election, Redfield said, unions and union members may hit the polls harder because a state constitutional amendment referendum question that would enshrine the ability to collectively bargain is on the ballot, while Republicans may come out in larger numbers to voice their displeasure with the enactment of many elements of the controversial SAFE-T Act.
While many are voting early, voters who have yet to go to the polls were receiving unsolicited text messages sharing incorrect information on Election Day polling places, the Illinois State Board of Elections warned late Tuesday in a news release.
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Some Illinois voters complained to the state board that the unprompted texts, sent from a group called Vote Futures, list their addresses and advise them to vote at the wrong polling site, according to the release.
Movement Labs, a vendor that works for progressive organizations such as Voto Latino and Black Voters Matter, acknowledged in a statement that it had sent the wrong information in texts to voters in Illinois, as well as Kansas, New Jersey, North Carolina and Virginia.
“We want Illinois voters to know that their election information should come only from trusted sources like the State Board of Elections or their local election authority,” Board of Elections Executive Director Bernadette Matthews said
