Early voting is down in Chicago
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
While Georgia and areas of Texas are breaking early voting records, Chicago's seeing only about half of the early and mail-in votes recorded by this time in 2020.
Why it matters: Robust levels of early voting can suggest high enthusiasm for an election and indicate whether voter turnout will be up overall.
- Early voting also helps keep election day lines manageable.
Context: When it comes to the presidential election, Chicago and Illinois are widely expected to break for Democratic Kamala Harris over Republican Donald Trump, but races for Congress, the state legislature and school board are less certain.
By the numbers: As of Monday night, 259,993 Chicagoans had cast early ballots:
- 150,461 early in-person ballots
- 109,532 vote-by-mail ballots
By comparison: Eight days out from the 2020 presidential election, 537,018 ballots had been cast.
- By this time in the 2016 presidential election, Chicago had received just 197,591 ballots.
What they're saying: "The November 2020 election was an anomaly," Max Bever at the Chicago Board of Elections tells Axios. "It's a pretty hard year to compare to."
- That's because the state, at the height of the pandemic, mailed every voter a vote-by-mail application and all wards had an expanded number of early voting days.
Case in point: In 2020, over 75% of ballots were cast before Election Day.
- "We aren't likely to see those numbers ever again," Bever said.
The latest: The United States Postal Service is urging voters to drop off their vote-by-mail ballots ASAP to reduce delays in counting votes.
The bottom line: Chicago voters aren't likely to break any early voting records this year.