A slower than anticipated start to election day in Lake County is not necessarily a predictor of the outcome as voters were set to choose mayors or village presidents in 11 contested races, as well as a variety of other local officials.
As of noon Tuesday, Lake County Clerk Anthony Vega said 10,309 people had voted across the county, along with 14,501 who voted early and 18,626 by mail as of Sunday night. There were no glitches in the system that allows voters to cast ballots at any polling place for only the second time, he said.
“It was very slow at the start,” Vega said. “We’re hoping for an afternoon rush, and a dinner rush. It’s sunny, and hopefully that will bring more people out.”
Voters across Lake County cast ballots for mayors, village presidents, city councils, village boards, park district commissioners, school district board members, library board trustees and more Tuesday to help shape the futures of their communities.
Perhaps the most high-profile race in the county was in Waukegan, where first-term Mayor Ann Taylor was in a four-way race with the man she ousted four years ago — former Mayor Sam Cunningham — Ald. Keith Turner, 6th Ward, and former Ald. Harold Beadling, 4th Ward.
Carolina Soler Rodriguez, the site judge at the Patricia Jones Center in the First Ward, said the polling place was busy. There was a line stretching halfway to the door at around 11:30 a.m. She said the people came for more than voting.
“Some of them came to get their (income) taxes done and they voted too,” Rodriguez said, referring to the tax preparation services also offered at the senior center.
“I thought we’d be lucky to have 100 people all day, but we probably have 100 by now,” another election judge added.
Vega said that as of noon, 111 voters cast ballots at the Jones Center.
While turnout is traditionally lower during the April municipal elections than it is for the presidential contest four months earlier, Ken Wickland, who voted at the Encore Events Center in Waukegan’s 8th Ward, said local contests are nonetheless important.
“This is where change happens,” he said. “People know what’s happening around them, and what needs to be changed in this area.”
A Gurnee resident, Wickland said he voted for Mayor Ken Hood over Trustee Quin O’Brien in his village’s mayoral contest. “I feel he’s done a good job,” Wickland said.
Inside the Encore Events Center, election judge Jim Fisher said the turnout as of 10:30 a.m. was slow. Vega said 118 people had voted there by noon. Jo Schlessinger, another election official, echoed Wickland’s feelings about local elections.
“These elections are important,” Schlessinger said. “These are the ones that can make a difference in your life.”
Kelia Byrd, who also voted at the Encore site Tuesday, said she wants to see a change in Waukegan. She did not say who got her vote, but she was not shy about her opinions of the condition of the city.
“I want to see progress,” Byrd said. “I want to see less crime. I want someone who’s going to get some progress.”
Along with mayoral contests in Waukegan and Gurnee, North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham Jr. — already the city’s longest-serving chief executive — was seeking a sixth term in a three-way contest with Ald. Anthony Coleman, 2nd Ward, and community activist David Hood.
Of the 333 contests across the county, 91 were contested. There were also referendums for Winthrop Harbor School District 1 and the Lincolnshire-Riverwoods Fire Protection District.
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