CHICAGO — The Illinois primary is less than a week away and while election officials say vote totals are low right now they are optimistic.
The Chicago Board of Elections held a press conference Thursday and said they believe history will repeat itself for Tuesday’s midterm elections.
Marisel Hernandez is with the board and said the low vote totals are a “product of voters not making up their minds.”
“We are going to see a surge in the next few days,” she said. “That’s typical of these midterm elections.”
The board it still has close about 90,000 mail ballots out that have not been returned. Election officials are warning people with those ballots to get them done and in the mail Thursday or risk not getting them postmarked by June 28 and not counted. They suggest anyone with a mail in ballot after Thursday to return it to one of their secure lock boxes at early voting sites.
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The last day to apply for a mail in ballot is Thursday but election officials are not encouraging to apply due to time constraints. Instead they say should take advantage of the early voting sites in all 50 wards or going to their precinct polling place on Election Day.
Election officials believe holding the primary in June this year instead of March is also influencing the amount of people casting their ballots so far but they hope this is just a one-off primary for the state.
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