City residents have cast about 2,200 early votes in Evanston for the 2008 presidential election primary.
Early voting lasted from Jan. 14 to Jan. 31 this year, and the city will release its final count Feb. 5.
Early voting was first instituted in Cook County in March 2006.This is the first presidential election with an early voting option, so city officials have no comparative figures from previous years.
But officials for the Cook County Clerk’s office said officials expect the turnout for the primary in general to surpass previous records.
“We expect to exceed the 40 percent primary turnout from 1992, which was very large for a primary,” said Cook County Clerk David Orr in a press release.
As of Thursday, about 50,600 voters cast their ballots in Cook County for the 2008 election, said Gail Siegel, communications director for the Cook County Clerk’s office.
There are more than 1.35 million voters registered in suburban Cook County.
“Early voting helps people who may not have Tuesdays off or may have a busy schedule between work and childcare or any other obligations on a weekday, ” Siegel said.
“It also helps election authorities because it means the polls are less crowded on Election Day.”
Residents usually wait until the last few days of the early voting period to cast their votes, said Evanston City Clerk Mary Morris.
“(Last Wednesday) we had two of the presidential candidates drop out,” said Morris, referring to John Edwards and Rudy Giuliani.
“Some people wait as long as they can and some people just wait until the last minute to do things.”
Others like David Rapoport, who works in downtown Chicago, stumbled upon the opportunity to vote early.
“I was going for a walk for lunch, but it was so cold out that I went through the tunnel system and nearly tripped over the office where people were voting,” said Rapoport, who voted about two weeks ago. “I hadn’t consciously thought about early voting, but it really was just convenient.”
While early voting was advertised heavily and seen as convenient by many, the nature of the election may also have been an influence on people.
“There are a lot of people very excited about this presidential primary, and we’re certain that was a big factor in bringing people out early,” Siegel said.
This sentiment was echoed by Morris, who said “all kinds of people” are voting in this particular election, especially the younger demographic.
“What we noticed this year was a real uptake in voter registration among young people, and that’s an unusual phenomenon; we haven’t see that for quite some time,” Morris said.
“People are usually ho-hum about these elections, so we know that the turnout is going to be big. I think it’s because we don’t have an incumbent running for president.”
Officials said they expect mail absentee ballots, grace period and in-person absentee votes to make up another 10,000 votes.
Both Morris and Siegel said they think Feb. 5 will still be a busy election day, barring poor weather conditions.
“I think, given fairly decent weather, we’ll have a big turnout,” Morris said. “But if the weather’s really bad, forget it.”
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