Itching to vote? More than 57,000 Illinois voters have already weighed in as requests for mail ballots top 2 million

Nearly a quarter of the state’s registered voters have requested ballots to vote by mail a little over a month before Election Day.

State records updated Tuesday morning show 2,001,775 people, or 24.6% of registered voters in Illinois, have requested a mail ballot so far, and 11,506 people have already returned those completed ballots to their election authorities.

The state has also seen 45,892 people vote early as of Tuesday morning, according to numbers released by the Illinois State Board of Elections.

Chicago has reported 440,893 voters requesting mail ballots as of 6 p.m. Tuesday, while Cook County’s election officials recorded 354,032 ballot requests in the suburbs — the most for a county election agency in the state, according to state figures.

DuPage County was close behind with 320,596 ballots out — and 2,680 people already voting early in that county.

In-person early voting begins Thursday in Chicago at the board of election’s Loop super site at 191 N. Clark St.

Marisel Hernandez, the chairwoman of the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, said Wednesday the city has seen a “historic” amount of interest in the upcoming election.

“We have received a record number of applications for Election Judges and shattered the previous record for Vote By Mail applications,” Hernandez said in a statement. “This is truly unprecedented, and we are happy to see so many Chicagoans making their plan to vote.”

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

The growing numbers of vote-by-mail requests come as voters prepare to cast their ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic, following a March primary that saw some polling places fail to open and election judges fail to show.

Chicago election officials and others throughout the state have lobbied hard for people to vote by mail since then.

An expansion of the state’s vote-by-mail apparatus, which was designed to ease concerns of voters still leery of visiting potentially crowded polling places, helped bolster the efforts of election agencies who’d have to sort through the mailed ballots.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

The city dropped about 245,000 ballots in the mail last Thursday, the start date for election authorities around the state to begin sending out ballots to those who requested to vote absentee.

Voters can still change their minds and vote in person without any fear of penalty.

Should they receive a vote-by-mail ballot and decide not to use it, they can surrender their mail ballot at the early voting site or Election Day polling place in exchange for a regular ballot.