Over 120,000 voters have already applied to vote by mail.
Chicago has once again broken its record in vote-by-mail registrations with over 120,000 applications for the November election.
Previously, the record had been set during the March primary, in which 118,000 Chicagoans had registered to vote by mail. Before then, the record had remained in place for over 80 years when 116,000 voters applied to vote by mail during WWII in 1944.
“Now, it’s just a matter of time before we see when Chicago voters may double, triple and maybe even quintuple those records from March 2020 and before that, November 1944 in World War II,” Lance Gough, Chicago Election Board Executive Director told NBC Chicago.
Through July 28, the Chicago Board of Elections plans to send out over 900,000 voter cards; while distributing vote-by-mail information to over 500,000 households.
All those who voted in recent elections will automatically receive an application for a vote-by-mail ballot, due to a law signed by Gov. JB Pritzker in June.
“Sending vote by mail applications to residents who have participated in recent elections will allow more people to exercise that right from the safety of their own homes and help reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our communities,” Pritzker said at the time.
To ensure transparency, applicants will receive up-to-date tracking information on their ballots. As such, applicants will be notified by email when there ballots are sent, returned, processed, and counted. Those ballots will go out early in the fall. In order for those ballots to be counted, they must be postmarked before Nov. 3, Election Day.
“Whether or not there’s a vaccine, there’s going to be a vote. And we need to do everything we can to keep our voters and our poll workers safe,” said James Allen with the Chicago Board of Elections.
Follow this link to apply to vote online.
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[Featured image via Facebook.com/ChicagoElection]