A record 220,000-plus ballots had been cast in Kane County as of late Tuesday afternoon, County Clerk Jack Cunningham said.
Data shows that by 4 p.m., 38,209 people had voted Tuesday at 300 polling places, 100,002 voted early at locations set up around the county and 80,531 had returned ballots by mail, Cunningham said.
Overall, about two-thirds of the county’s 333,451 voters had cast ballots by 4 p.m. Tuesday. That number could be closer to 70% by the time polls close, he said.
“Most of them did vote early,” he said. “We’ll probably have the usual rush — maybe 4,000 or 5,000 — before 7 o’clock.”
“It’s been one of the quietest (Election Days) I’ve been involved in,” Cunningham said, given how many people opted to vote early or by mail. Wait times to vote Tuesday were minimal, he said.
The 181,950 votes cast prior to Election Day eclipsed the record set in 2016, when 172,100 people opted to submit ballots early, he said. In both cases, it was a presidential election year.
In fact, total votes cast, early votes cast and mail-in ballots returned all surpassed 2016 totals in Kane, according to clerk’s office social media posts.
Four years ago, 72,537 people voted early and 9,424 voted by mail.
The record for mail-in voting was set in the 2018 midterm election, when 14,501 people opted to go that route.
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“Mail-in voting has changed the entire demographics of the election process,” Cunningham said.
The Kane location with the highest number of early voters was the Kane County Branch Court in St. Charles, with 12,223 votes cast. That was followed by the Elgin Township Office, with 10,935 votes, and the Gail Borden Public Library in Elgin, with 9,109.
There were 3,804 ballots cast at the county’s mobile voting RV, which made stops around the county, including at Jewel-Osco stores in Elgin, Batavia, St. Charles and West Dundee.
As of Tuesday morning, 80,531 of the 90,413 mail-in ballots requested by voters had been returned, county clerk’s records show. That number could change if the outstanding ballots are delivered to the county with a postmark on or before Election Day.
Some people may have opted to vote in-person rather than returning their ballots by mail, Cunningham said.
Of the 80,531 mail-in ballots already received, only 157 were challenged by the clerk’s office for various reasons, he said.