Election officials in Peoria and Tazewell County say early-vote figures suggest turnout will be high for Tuesday's general election.
Peoria County Election Commission Executive Director Elizabeth Gannon says her office had received close to 18,400 vote-by-mail ballots returned and 24,200 early voters before Monday.
“So we've already had almost 35% of our registered voters in Peoria County cast a ballot,” Gannon said.
Similarly, Tazewell County Clerk John Ackerman says they were also at about 35% turnout in pre-Election Day voting.
“We're sitting at around 25,000 total votes cast already. Of that, 10,050 of them have been vote by mail,” Ackerman said. “We're in the process of working on probably another 400-500 vote-by-mail ballots going through today. So we’re seeing astronomically high numbers.”
Gannon says Peoria County has seen a 76% return rate on its mail-in ballots thus far.
“I really attribute that to Illinois implementing permanent vote by mail, and ballots will just continue to come in over the next few days,” she said.
Both Ackerman and Gannon said comparing early turnout this year to the last presidential election in 2020 is not relevant because those previous figures were inflated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We don't measure that against the others, but with that one exception, this is the highest turnout ever in Tazewell County for early voting,” Ackerman said.
Ackerman said they’re anticipating overall turnout in Tazewell County to fall somewhere in the 76-80% range. Gannon says they’re hoping to surpass 70% in Peoria County.
“So that would be another you know, 42,000 people casting their votes (Tuesday),” said Gannon, advising Election Day voters to be prepared to wait in a line. “It is a presidential election, so that just kind of comes with this territory, right? You've got the highest percentage of registered voters participating, which is great, but it does take time.”
Gannon noted the Peoria County Election Commission’s office on Brandywine Drive is the county’s early voting location available Monday, staying open until 7 p.m. She said the line there on Monday snaked around the building.
Neither Ackerman nor Gannon reported any abnormal behavior or disruptions rising to the level of requiring police involvement at any of their locations so far this election season.
Ackerman said election judges deserve a great deal of credit and acknowledgement for their service.
“Those citizen volunteers are what makes these elections possible, and they need to know that they're appreciated, that their work is valued by the public, so that they're encouraged to come back for future elections as well,” he said.
Gannon also reminds election observers that vote totals posted on Election Night are not the final results.
“The election is not made official until actually two weeks after the election,” she said. “That allows for any vote-by-mail ballots that were postmarked by Election Day and are received within those two weeks after the election to be counted.
“We also have provisional votes that are cast on Election Day that we’ll do the research on those and decide if those should be counted or not. So there are still votes being tabulated after Election Day.”
