Early voting starts Monday

“Vote early, vote often,” is the tongue-in-cheek phrase commonly attributed to former Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson in reference to rampant political corruption in Cook County in the 20th century.

These days, you just get to vote once — but you get a variety of options in how to do so.

Suburban offices have spent recent weeks making special efforts to remind voters of the plethora of ways to cast their votes.

Early voting starts Monday and runs until March 15, giving voters a chance to make their picks and get their democratic task out of the way before the March 20 primary.

More and more people have been choosing that option over the years, but how many try it this time might depend on how excited they are about the election in general.

A hotly contested Republican presidential primary, for example, might spur people to the polls. But Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham said it's hard to predict what people will do.

“You have different variables,” he said. “It's kind of liquid.”

Early voters take a risk, though, by not waiting until Election Day. It's possible they might learn something about their favored candidate or an opponent that makes them want to change their minds after they've already weighed in.

Voters may want to wait to see how campaigns pan out or lock in their choices early if they're unsure they'll be able to get to the polls March 20.

“Until it starts, you just don't know,” said McHenry County Clerk Katherine Schultz.

To vote early, a person needs to be registered and can check with local county clerks' offices to find what voting locations will be open and when.

Last Tuesday was the last standard day for suburban voters to register for the primary election, but a grace period for registering will continue until March 13.

Someone who registers with their local county clerk or election authority during the grace period can't vote on Election Day, though.

Instead, they have to vote when they register, during the grace period.

To date, Kane County officials say they have about 212,000 registered, similar to the about 211,500 voters the county had registered in the 2008 presidential primary.

The DuPage County Election Commission reports about 525,400 registered voters with the grace period still pending, down from about 549,700 in the 2008 presidential primary.

In Lake County, Clerk Willard Helander's office reports 386,834 registered voters, up from 377,738 in the 2008 primary.

In suburban Cook County, there are 1.38 million registered voters, up from 1.35 million in 2008 and 1.29 million in 2004, Clerk David Orr's office announced last week.

Schultz said that with regular registration just ending, she hasn't yet totaled the numbers for McHenry County.

For the first time in Illinois history, all voters are eligible to cast primary votes by mail. Suburban voters can download applications from their county clerk's websites, or pick them up at various office locations. The last day to request a mail ballot is March 15.

Upon receiving a mail ballot application, the clerk's office verifies the voter's registration and signature and then mails the ballot to the voter. After the voter makes his or her choices and fills out the certification form on the return envelope, the ballot must be mailed to the clerk's office with a postmark no later than March 19.

The law allowing for no-excuse mail voting was passed in 2009 and first implemented for the 2010 gubernatorial primary election.