Mail ballots trickling in cut Eileen O'Neill Burke’s lead over Clayton Harris in Cook County state's attorney race

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Eileen O’Neill Burke’s thin lead in the Democratic race for Cook County state’s attorney narrowed slightly Friday as Chicago election officials began counting mail-in ballots, but it may be the weekend or later before all votes are tallied.

Burke, a retired appellate court justice, has handily led in the suburbs so far, but university lecturer Clayton Harris has maintained a narrow edge in Chicago. On Friday, thanks to the counting of mail ballots from Chicago voters, Harris whittled Burke’s lead, with a net gain of 1,366 votes.

That left Burke ahead by 6,786 votes, a margin that has steadily shrunk since election night.

The Cook County election board did not release any numbers Friday from its count of mail-in ballots from suburban voters.

Based on what has been released so far, Burke is leading Harris, 50.7% to 49.3% overall, with tens of thousands of mail-in ballots left to be counted in the city and suburbs.

Overseen by a small army of poll watchers for each campaign, city election judges on Friday carefully opened the mail-in ballots and initialized them as they checked signatures.

After a lunch break, they began feeding the ballots by ward into counting machines that flipped through ballots with the speed of an automatic card shuffler or money counter — much faster than the one-by-one process that voters who cast a paper ballot in person would recognize.

By Friday evening, the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners said it had processed 12,634 mail-in ballots of the 27,485 it had received since Election Day. The leaves potentially 71,624 mail-in ballots that were sent out to voters still unreturned, and officials don’t expect to receive them all.

Counting will resume on Saturday and Sunday, officials said, and continue in much the same manner until the April 2 deadline, with updates to the totals expected to be released each day. Election officials have said they will count any ballot that arrives by April 2, provided it was postmarked no later than Election Day.

The county election board is processing suburban mail-in ballots separately, and a spokesman for that board said Friday it did not expect updated results until “early next week.”

Poll watchers for the campaigns cannot challenge ballots during the process, only watch and take notes. Those notes could then be used in filing a lawsuit after the counting is concluded or to challenge the results, officials explained.

Illinois does not automatically conduct recounts in close elections, instead relying on campaigns to request one.

The large number of mail-in ballots and the closeness of the race has kept a winner from being called. Neither campaign has claimed victory or conceded defeat, instead urging supporters to be patient and allow the democratic process to play out.

The current state’s attorney, Kim Foxx, announced last year she was not running for re-election. The winner of the Democratic contest will enter the fall general election as the overwhelming favorite over Republican Bob Fioretti.

‘Bring Chicago Home’ referendum

The Associated Press also has called the results in the “Bring Chicago Home” referendum, as the latest returns showed Mayor Brandon Johnson’s signature ballot question falling short by a vote of 53.2% to 46.8%.

With an estimated 90% of the votes counted, “No” votes stood at 173,217 to 152,248 “Yes” votes, with remaining mail-in yet to be counted.

The referendum asked voters to authorize the Chicago City Council to increase the real estate transfer tax on properties selling for $1million or more. The extra revenue, estimated by supporters at $100 million a year, would have been used for programs to reduce homelessness.