Chicago and Cook County voters broke records in the November election, including the total number of ballots cast since 1992, a post-election analysis by Cook County Clerk David Orr has found.
But in suburban Cook County, a historically low number of those ballots were cast for President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump received the lowest number of votes – 317,970 – by a Republican or Democratic presidential candidate in modern suburban Cook County history, Orr found.
Hillary Clinton received the highest number of votes in suburban Cook by a presidential candidate since 1992: 699,003. That surpassed President Barack Obama’s 2008 record by 845 votes.
In Chicago, Clinton got 912,000 votes — beating out Obama’s 2012 vote tally of 853,000, but not his 2008 total when he received 930,000 votes.
In Chicago, more than 1,116,000 ballots were cast, while in suburban Cook, 1,089,840 were cast — both the highest since 1992.
Voter turnout was 71 percent for both Chicago and Cook County.
The final numbers also show law clerk Rhonda Crawford received 96 percent of the vote in a judicial race — more than 87,000 votes in Chicago and suburban Cook County — despite being charged with a felony shortly before election day because she had briefly filled in for a judge hearing traffic cases. A write-in candidate received slightly less than four percent.
Voters are utilizing early-voting efforts, according to Orr’s analysis. Cook County saw a 57 percent increase in early voting, compared to the 2012 election.
In Chicago, 38 percent of votes were cast outside of precincts, mostly before Election Day. That includes early voting, grace period voting, mail ballots, nursing home and military ballots overseas, according to Chicago Board of Election Commissioners spokesman Jim Allen.
Other notable statistics include more than 80,000 mail-in ballots processed from Chicago voters. That’s the highest amount of mail ballots received since World War II, when 116,000 mail ballots were tallied.
Allen said it’s clear voters are realizing the ease of mailing in ballots.
“It’s becoming easier,” he said. “Your home is now your polling place when you vote by mail.”
