While most voters are expected to head to the polls on Election Day, nearly a quarter-million opted to cast their ballots ahead of time - whether through early voting or vote-by-mail ballots, according to the Chicago Board of Elections.
As of Monday night, 244,580 ballots had been cast, with 131,806 ballots from in-person early voting and another 112,774 from residents who opted to vote by mail.
While data has shown significantly higher early voting and mail-in turnout than in previous years, it's uncertain if the increase will translate into a higher turnout on Election Day.
To put this year's numbers into perspective, 165,025 ballots had been cast on the day before the 2019 municipal election. Of those votes, 130,928 were from early voting sites and 34,097 were cast by mail. In 2015, the municipal election before that, 113,770 ballots were cast prior to Election Day, including 95,937 early votes and 17,833 votes through mail.
While Election Day hasn't even arrived yet, the number of votes counted so far amounts to nearly half of those cast throughout the entirety of the 2019 election.
As of late Monday, 100,843 outstanding vote-by-mail ballots had yet to arrive back to the Board of Elections.
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