Voters turn out heavy Tuesday morning

The polls are open and people are coming out in force to cast their ballot, election officials said Tuesday morning.

Courtney Greve, spokeswoman for the Cook County Clerk’s Office in Chicago, said she is seeing about a 70 percent voter turnout in Cook County, exceptionally high for a county election but slightly below record-setting numbers in 1992.

“But, so far, knock on wood, we haven’t had any problems to report in the suburbs,” Greve said. “There were some computer slowness issues early this morning, but that seems to have cleared up and things are working fine.”

The most interesting development of the day, she said, was a woman in labor in suburban Dalton stopped by the polls to vote on her way to the hospital.

Joe Sobecki, the assistant executive director of the DuPage County Election Commission, said voter turnout is also strong early in DuPage County, and could rival turnout numbers in 2008.

“We had around 76 percent voter turnout in 2008 and we are seeing comparable numbers now,” Sobecki said. “We have had some lines at the polls, but people seem to be moving in and out quickly. So, we haven’t seen any major issues at this point and things are moving along smoothly.”

Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham said about 91,000 of the 223,000 registered voters in the county have voted by 11 a.m., whether it was through absentee, early voting, or heading to the polls early Tuesday.

“I’m not sure if we’ll hit our 74 percent like we did in 2008, but we are getting up there,” Cunningham said. “It will be a busy day for the election judges, though.”

He said the county had 42 percent voter turnout at 10:37 a.m.