Ready to vote? Early voting expands across the suburbs Monday

Additional early voting locations open across the suburbs today, giving voters more opportunities to cast their ballots.

More than 50,000 suburban voters already have cast their ballots since early voting started Sept. 26, election officials report. Most early voting has happened at county clerks offices or select locations throughout the suburbs.

On Monday, early voting expands to include 157 locations across the suburbs.

“I’d encourage people not to wait until the last minute,” said Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham, noting lines at early voting locations have not been too long.

Wondering where the early voting locations are? Here are some helpful websites:

Illinois State Board of Elections, elections.il.gov

Cook County, cookcountyclerkil.gov

DuPage County, dupagecounty.gov

Kane County, clerk.kanecountyil.gov

Lake County, lakecountyil.gov

McHenry County, mchenrycountyil.gov

Will County, willcountyclerk.gov

If you want to vote by mail, your request for a ballot must be in to your county clerk’s office by Oct. 31.

In the 2020 presidential election, in-person early voting totals reached new heights as pandemic-weary voters sought to avoid long lines or crowded polling places on Election Day. It was not uncommon for lines to wrap around buildings as voters sought to cast their ballots.

Voters opting for mail-in ballots also skyrocketed in 2020. In DuPage County, for example, more than 200,000 voters requested vote-by-mail ballots; 180,000 of them were submitted. Suburban Cook County voters requested more than 600,000 vote-by-mail ballots in 2020.

Nearly 6.1 million Illinoisans voted in the 2020 election, said Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections. He noted that so far there are 8.1 million voters registered for the November election.

This year, early voting and vote-by-mail requests are lagging a bit behind 2020. According to the Illinois State Board of Elections, there were already 177,652 votes cast in 2020 by this time in the election cycle. As of Thursday, roughly 151,000 voters have cast their ballots across the state, Dietrich said.

Election officials anticipate a spike in in-person voting as Election Day nears and additional voting locations open.

“We’d really encourage people when they do have their voting plan to go to an early voting site when they’re ready … we don’t want anyone to feel rushed on election day,” said Edmund Michalowski, Cook County deputy clerk of elections.

While voting by mail is more popular than it was before the pandemic, officials said many voters have returned to pre-pandemic habits and are opting for in-person voting.

As of early Friday in DuPage County, nearly 31,000 voters had already turned out for in-person voting.

“That’s more than what we had in 2020,” DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek said.

She noted the first day of early voting drew 1,533 voters. In 2020, only 660 people turned out to cast their ballot on the first day of early voting.

In 2022, DuPage County adopted a “vote anywhere” system where voters can cast their ballot at any polling location. New equipment is making it easier to check in voters. While early in-person voters used an electronic voting system in 2020, voters this year can cast a paper ballot at any of the polling locations.