Early voting closes today, and as of this morning, 58,000 Chicagoans had cast their ballot at the city’s 51 early voting centers. That’s more than double the figure from the last citywide elections in 2007.
“Respectable, but not record setting,” says Jim Allen, spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections. “We’ll probably top 70,000 ballots in early voting, compared to fewer than 24,000 four years ago.”
The higher numbers suggest more acceptance by voters of early voting, he says.
While Allen says the numbers will not be as strong as they were for the 2008 presidential election (where more than 260,000 people voted early), “they’re far, far better than they were in 2007, when turnout was an anemic 33 percent.”
Early voting here has been well-publicized, and the city’s mayoral candidates have been promoting early voting regularly on Facebook.
The Tribune’s Eric Zorn writes that he’s against it:
Even barring dramatic turns of events, on average, a vote cast three weeks before Election Day is a less well-informed vote than a vote cast on Election Day. And you, dear voter, are almost certainly going to be better informed about the candidates and the issues on Feb. 22 than you are today.
Agree? Disagree?
If you want to vote early, you can find your location HERE. The polls close at 5 p.m.