With two weeks to go until the 2023 municipal elections, Chicago voters are increasingly using multiple methods to cast their ballots early, with early voting up by more than 400% over the last citywide elections four years ago.
According to the latest data released by the Chicago Board of Elections on Tuesday, city voters have cast 63,949 ballots so far during this election season. That represents an increase of more than 400% from the 12,607 ballots that had been cast by this point in the 2019 election cycle.
That increase has been driven in large part thanks to voters’ desire to cast their ballots by mail. According to CBOE statistics, 45,368 mail-in ballots have been received so far during the election cycle, up from the 3,296 that had been submitted at this same point in the 2019 race.
Chicago will soon overtake the 49,652 mail-in ballots that were cast in the entirety of the 2019 municipal election cycle, according to CBOE data.
More than 200,000 applications for mail-in ballots were received by city officials this election cycle,
Even with the popularity of mail-in balloting, the available of early voting sites on a citywide level, with sites now open in all 50 wards and two different supersites available in downtown, has also driven an increase in early voting ballots, with 18,581 cast at polling places so far.
That represents a two-fold increase from the 9,311 that had been cast with two weeks to go until the 2019 election.
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What remains to be seen is the impact the availability of early voting and mail-in balloting will have on voter turnout in the 2023 election. In the last two citywide elections, just over one-third of eligible voters cast ballots, including in the 2019 race that saw Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle advance to a mayoral runoff from a crowded field of candidates.
With nine candidates on the ballot this time around, and with a large number of contested City Council races, turnout could rise in 2023.
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The municipal election is set for Feb. 28. If candidates do not receive at least 50% of the vote in that election, then the top-two vote getters in a race would advance to a runoff election, which will be held on April 4.
