Kane County wants more early voting heading into primary election

Early voting is key to keeping lines short at the polls on Feb. 2, but Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham said he's not seeing as many ballots cast before the primary as he'd like.

Cunningham said he'd like to see about 10,000 early votes cast before the primary, but only about 3,000 early votes have been tabulated so far. The county began touring local communities with its mobile early voting trucks on Jan. 11. So far, the best participation has come from Sugar Grove residents. Those mobile voting trucks will continue to make appearances through the end of early voting, which concludes Thursday. Voters can get a full list of times and locations the trucks will be available at the Kane County Clerk's Web site. Cunningham said his office is always seeking new locations for the trucks that will make voting as convenient as possible.

Cunningham said absentee voting will effectively carry the early voting period even beyond Thursday.

"You no longer need an excuse to vote absentee," Cunningham said. "Because of that, today, absentee voting is similar and almost identical to early voting. It gives people another opportunity to vote. And, we've noted with the recent weather, there is an increase in absentees.

Cunningham doesn't believe that increase will extend to the actual total number of votes that will be cast in the primary. Based on early voting numbers and history, Cunningham is expecting only about 20 percent of registered voters will cast a ballot in the primary. That works out to about 50,000 to 55,000 votes that will decide which candidates move on to the general election in November.