Voters in Waukegan on Tuesday will cast their votes in three primary races for mayor, city clerk and township highway commissioner.
Though they are Democratic primaries, any registered voter in Waukegan can cast a ballot, Lake County Clerk Carla Wyckoff said.
Polling places open at 6 a.m. and close at 7 p.m.
Voters who live outside of the city limits but are within Waukegan’s township boundaries will only vote in the election for highway commissioner, a contest between Victor F. Ruiz and Arthur Craigen.
On Tuesday, residents will have to vote at their designated polling places. That’s different from early voting, during which people can vote at any of the universal early polling sites. There will be 19 polling places open throughout the city and the township, Wyckoff said. Residents can find their polling place on the county clerk’s “Voter Power” website at https://www.lakecountyil.gov/351/Voter-Power.
Mail-in ballots can be sent up until the end of the day Tuesday, Wyckoff said.
The most hotly contested and high-profile contest among the three is the race for Waukegan mayor. First-term incumbent Wayne Motley is facing Ald. Sam Cunningham, 1st, who was first elected to the City Council in 1999. The winner will battle Ald. Lisa May, 7th, who is running as an independent, in the April 4 general election.
The race for clerk is between incumbent Maria LaCour, who is running on a slate with Motley, and Janet E. Kilkelly, who is on Cunningham’s slate. Motley appointed LaCour to the position in 2014.
As of Sunday, the clerk’s office had counted 721 early votes, and 639 vote-by-mail ballots had been returned, Wyckoff said. There are more than 40,000 registered voters in the City of Waukegan.
“Without getting at all judgmental, it’s a fairly low turnout,” Wyckoff said.
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Motley and Cunningham both said on Monday that they would be doing last-minute campaigning. Motley was planning to be at the Waukegan Metra station during the evening commute Monday, and he said he planned to take residents to polling places on Tuesday.
“We’re walking the streets and just talking to people,” Motley said.
Cunningham said he planned to have three vans available to drive residents to the polls on Tuesday and said his campaign would monitor turnout throughout the day.
“If those numbers are low, then we have to get our people on the streets to start revving it up again,” Cunningham said.
Results will be posted after the polls close at the county clerk’s website.
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