Chicago
Chicago Election Day Information: Where to vote, what time the polls close, what’s on the ballot
Today is Election Day for Chicago’s 2023 municipal elections, and the ballot includes races city council, city clerk, city treasurer, the new police district council and the highly contested mayoral election.
According to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, polling places will be open from 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. If you are in line before 7 o’clock, you will still be able to vote. The full list of polling places and where to find them is available on the Election Commissioners website.
If you are not registered to vote, Illinois offers same day registration if you provide a valid form of identification.
You may need to show your ID under certain circumstances when voting during the Consolidated Primary tomorrow. #LandOfLincolnVotes #election2023 pic.twitter.com/YRc9YReThu
— Illinois SBE (@illinoissbe) February 27, 2023
There has been a huge turnout of early voting in this election, with 244,580 ballots cast as of Monday night, according to NBC 5 Chicago. Almost half of those ballots were sent in by mail, with 100,843 of them still not in the hands of the Board of Elections. This means that the projected nail-biter finish for the mayoral race could take days to finish counting, especially if one of the candidates requests a recount. Any mail-in ballots received by the Board of Elections by March 14 will be counted.
The mayoral race will almost certainly go to a runoff, where the top two candidates will advance to another election on April 4 if nobody receives more than 50% of the vote. With nine candidates in the race, and polls projecting very tight numbers for the top four candidates, a runoff seems inevitable.