(The Center Square) – Early voting sites will open in nearly every county beginning Thursday, with the exception of Cook County and the city of Chicago, where things will get going in early October.
Since 2015, early voting in Illinois has traditionally started 40 days prior to election day in Illinois.
Illinois State Board of Elections spokesman Matt Dietrich said at the start of the early voting season, voters will likely have to vote at their county clerk’s office.
“A couple of weeks into the process or a few weeks ahead of election day, you will see a pretty substantial expansion of early voting locations in some of our larger counties,” said Dietrich.
The increase in early voting locations typically correlates with the number of early votes cast. Dietrich said that the closer election day is, the more early votes are cast and more locations will open.
“In that period, the initial 40-days up until two weeks or even one week before election day, it’s a little slower. People aren’t necessarily rushing out on Sept. 26 to cast their vote. Some are, but generally we see most of the early voting being done in the last couple of weeks prior to election day,” said Dietrich.
In a lot of Illinois counties, the early voting process will remain in the clerk’s office, but some counties will open up other locations and where those early voting locations wind up is at the discretion of the local election authority.
Dietrich said the state board of elections isn’t concerned about staffing or security at multiple early voting locations.
In October 2022, a Bloomington mall, also an early voting location, was broken into and vandalized. According to reports at the time, McLean County Clerk Kathy Michael said there was no damage and nothing was stolen at the voting site. Dietrich called that incident an “outlier.”
“We haven’t had reports of security problems with the jurisdictions that have locations other than their central office,” said Dietrich.
Early voting locations are just like a regular polling place, according to Dietrich. There are election judges, people checking voters in and handing them their ballot.
“Election judges are there to assist you if you have any issues or if you make a stray mark on your ballot and the tabulator won’t take it. You’ll be able to get assistance from an election judge,” said Dietrich. “Generally what you’ll find is you’ll go into the clerk’s office and they’ll have an early voting location set up in a designated area of their office.”
On the Illinois State Board of Elections’ website, voters can look up early voting times and early voting locations in their jurisdiction.
