Primary election wraps up late after delayed starts at some polling places

Late-arriving poll workers and no-shows caused delayed starts in a primary election Tuesday that forced some polls to stay open later despite relatively low voter turnout.

The delays were considered serious enough for the Cook County clerk’s office to seek a court order Tuesday afternoon that kept certain precincts open an hour later at Kennedy School in Chicago Heights, Golf Middle School in Morton Grove, Our Lady of Mount Carmel School in Melrose Park, Roosevelt School in Broadview and Douglas MacArthur School in Hoffman Estates.

Six precincts that opened late this morning remained open until 8 p.m., which was expected to delay the clerk’s reporting of results, the clerk’s office said. The remaining 1,424 precincts in suburban Cook County closed at 7 p.m.

Chicago’s Board of Elections found 56 delayed openings at precinct polling locations, said agency spokesperson Max Bever. But he said election investigators hadn’t found enough evidence of problems needed to ask a court to keep any of them open beyond 7 p.m.

The court’s intervention for the suburban precincts came after a morning in which some locations across the city and suburbs struggled to open on time amid a shortage of workers.

At Kelvyn Park High School in Hermosa, two of the four precincts had to turn voters away into the afternoon. One was Jenny Morales, a 46-year-old shift manager, who was told by an elections official that she’d need to go to an early voting site to cast her vote because the election judges for her precinct did not show up.

“I feel angry and I feel frustrated,” she said, adding she didn’t plan to go to the early voting site that was nearly two miles away. “You’re not gonna shuffle me back and forth. This is ridiculous.”

Election coordinator Alison Chambliss said when she arrived before the polls opened at 6 a.m., they only had enough staff to accept voters for two precincts. She said in nearly 20 years of working at polling places, the staffing issues Tuesday stood out.

“This is one of the worst in terms of judges,” she said. “There’s always been a body.”

Polling places in Humboldt Park also had problems. As of 8:30 a.m., state Rep. Delia Ramirez, a Democrat running in the 3rd Congressional District race, was one of two voters who had shown up at her polling place at Harriet Beecher Stowe School, which opened with two of four poll workers still yet to arrive.

Ramirez said while she was en route to vote, she saw volunteers in front of the voting site at Yates Elementary School did not have voting booths open as of 6:45 a.m.

“Unfortunately, Lillian and I talked to a number of voters who said, ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been waiting, I have to get to work,” said Ramirez, who addressed reporters alongside Lillian Jiménez, who is running to replace Ramirez’s seat in the Illinois House.

“We have people who absolutely understand the importance of voting, especially when we see what’s happening in the country, and they won’t be able to vote,” Ramirez said.

A poll worker at the school later told the Tribune that while they had opened on time, they were short staffed with half the number of judges as usual. Between 6 a.m. and 3 p.m., there were 137 voters split among three precincts at the location, the worker said.

Michele Ryba of Archer Heights said she showed up to her polling place at Edwards Elementary School at 8:45 a.m. only to discover she could not vote because no election judges had shown up. Several people trying to vote were turned away, she said.

Ryba, who works as a marketing director in the hospitality industry, ended up voting instead at the Archer Heights Library, an early voting location.

“At least I got to vote,” she wrote in an email to the Tribune. “I wonder how many people were turned away due to election judges not showing up and voters not being directed to an alternate polling place.”

Some sites opened later because of judges who resigned in recent days, including some who resigned as late as 5 a.m. and 6 a.m., Bever said.

Another challenge, Bever said, may have been that 48 precinct polling places were left vacant, under court order, after struggles lining up polling places for Tuesday, ranging from summer availability to accessibility issues. That affected nearly 60,000 Chicago voters, who received letters and emails letting them know how to vote Tuesday.

By 7 p.m. on Election Day, the total number of ballots counted in Chicago was 299,490, representing 20% of eligible voters citywide, Bever said. That is lower than four of the last five primary elections, which ranged from 16.5% turnout in March 2014 to 53.5% in March 2016. The last gubernatorial primary, in March 2018, saw a 32.7% turnout of Chicago voters.

Turnout increased steadily throughout the day, with most people voting around 5 p.m. A total of 163,360 ballots were cast on Election Day in the city as of 7 p.m., with the highest number of votes cast among people ages 65 to 74, Bever said.

Election officials wary of lower voter turnout had urged voters to cast their votes early by mail, before leaving town for the Fourth of July holiday weekend. Along with falling on a nonpresidential election year, the primary date is unusually late. The election was moved from its usual March date because 2020 U.S. Census Bureau numbers needed for redistricting were late, making it the latest Illinois has held a primary since at least the Great Depression.

While in-person early voting lagged behind the last midterm, more people voted by mail than in the 2018 midterms.

Statewide, 460,114 votes had been cast early or by mail as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, compared with 449,749 in 2018, according to Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections. That includes 171,556 mail ballots returned so far, compared with 96,875 mail ballots in 2018.

Another 166,859 mail ballots remained unreturned as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, Dietrich said.

In Chicago, 115,545 ballots had been cast through early voting or voting by mail by the close of early voting Monday evening, Bever said. By comparison, a total of 129,509 ballots had been cast the day before the 2018 midterm primary, Bever said.

While early voting tallies were lower overall in Chicago, more than twice as many ballots were returned by mail before the election compared with 2018, mirroring the trend seen statewide. As of Monday, 51,078 ballots had been returned by mail, compared with 20,228 one day before the 2018 election, Bever said.

Another 73,801 mail-in ballots had yet to be returned in Chicago as of Monday. Tuesday was the last day a mail-in ballot could be postmarked to be counted. Any ballot postmarked after June 28 will not be counted, and ballots must be received by local election authorities by July 12.

More than 160 teams of assistant attorneys general and investigators from the Illinois attorney general’s office were monitoring the election throughout Illinois for potential problems, according to a news release. Voters who suspect improper or illegal activity can call 866-536-3496 in Chicago and northern Illinois, or 866-559-6812 in central and southern Illinois.