When President Barack Obama cast his vote on Oct. 25, he joined the ranks of more than 64,000 Chicagoans who have voted early. While early voting continues to yield high turnout in Chicago and suburban Cook County, which alone has seen nearly 60,000 voters, there are mixed reactions about how early voting will affect election results.
As we
in an article on Friday, political commentators say Democrats in particular are encouraging voters to hit the polls early. The idea is that they want to secure votes when people lean one way or have the time to vote, and shift focus on undecided voters right before or on Election Day.
, an emeritus professor of political science at the University of Illinois at Springfield, explained that early voting is not only a convenience, but a strategy Democrats hope will help them gain votes from the working class.
“Early voting tends to be more heavily Democratic because it’s basically socioeconomic class-based,” said Redfield. “People with flexible schedules don’t worry about early voting. The Democratic party especially has worked very hard to promote early voting whereas the Republican party has historically promoted absentee voting, which requires more effort.”
According to the
, early voting will likely be an effective means of getting more people to the polls to vote. In heavily-Democratic cities like Chicago, that may not be a concern, but not everyone is convinced early voting will actually make a difference by the time votes are counted.
that Gallup polls estimate that voter turnout will remain unchanged for the 2012 presidential election. Similarly, a
“Poverty and Public Policy” article
by
, a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, indicates that early voting may be popular particularly among African-Americans and Democrats, but may not contribute significantly to the ultimate ballot count.
However early voting affects the final count, Chicago voters are hitting the polls hard. In an Oct. 25 statement, Chicago Election Board Chairman Langdon D. Neal said he estimates early voting has been a greater success than expected and will continue to draw more people as election day approaches.
“In short, this year’s early voting numbers have been blockbuster huge, no matter how you measure them,” said Neal. “Even with fewer voters on the rolls and a shorter early voting schedule than 2008, we’re on pace to break the early voting totals from 2008.”
The highest turnout for early voting among the city’s 50 wards has been in the African-American wards, which saw the lowest turnout in the 2011 mayoral election. These wards include Bronzeville (8.24 percent), Woodlawn (7.54 percent turnout) and Gage Park (7.10 percent). Hyde Park, the President’s former neighborhood, also saw high turnout at 6.94 percent. At each, more than 1,300 people have cast ballots since Monday.
Both Republicans and Democrats are fighting over the Latino vote nationally, but turnout in Chicago’s Latino wards continues to be low. Humboldt Park, Logan Square, Little Village and Irving Park have experienced low turnout, each at less than 3.5 percent, with less than 700 people casting votes at each to date. Our data shows that turnout at many of Chicago’s Latino wards was similarly low in the 2011 mayoral election (click
to view our data).
That’s despite the fact that a record-high number of 23.4 million Latinos in the United States will be eligible to vote, says the
.
The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO)
projects that about 433,000 Latinos will be eligible to vote in Illinois.
Nationally, Latino turnout has been lagging that of whites and blacks, reports the Pew Research Center. In 2008, 50 percent of 4 million eligible Latino voters cast ballots, compared to 65 percent of blacks and 66 percent of whites.
In Chicago, 51 early voting sites will operate from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Three of these sites – Welles Park, Mount Greenwood Park and Chicago’s Board of Election Commissioners – will also be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Sundays. Early voting ends November 3. For information about early voting, click on the map or go to the Board of Election Commissioners for the City of Chicago or Cook County Clerk website.
Azra Halilovic co-authored this article.
