Here’s how to vote by mail in Illinois for the November general election
Illinois is making it easier to vote by mail on Nov. 3 in an effort to limit the spread of coronavirus.
A new law allows voters to avoid polling places, and the possibility of catching COVID-19 while performing their civic duty.
Here’s what voters need to know.
How do I get a mail-in ballot?
Anyone who is registered to vote in Illinois can request a mail ballot, and anyone who applied to vote in 2018, 2019 or 2020 will automatically receive a vote-by-mail application through the postal service or email.
Applications will begin arriving in the coming weeks.
Voters must submit their applications either by mail or in person to their local voting jurisdiction. For those who haven’t voted in recent years, applications for each jurisdiction can be found at elections.il.gov/electionoperations/VotingByMail.aspx.
Applications are due by Oct. 29 at the latest.
When do I get my ballot?
If their application is approved, voters will receive their ballot by mail. Ballots begin going out on Sept. 24, the same day early voting begins.
Ballots must be returned by Nov. 3 either in person at the local election authority or by mail. Officials will accept ballots by mail up to 15 days after the election, but they must be postmarked by Nov. 3.
Can I still vote in person?
Voters can still cast their ballots in person on Election Day or during early voting.
All early voting sites will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. on weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends and holidays. Early voting begins September 24 and ends November 2.
Every election authority can establish one “super site” either at their office or in the jurisdiction’s largest municipality where any voter in the jurisdiction, regardless of precinct, can vote on Election Day.
Mail ballots will be counted on Election Night. Judges can begin verifying signatures and processing ballots up to 15 days prior to the election, but the ballots won’t be tabulated until Nov. 3.
Election costs soar
County clerks expect the cost of this year’s election to soar.
Madison County Clerk Debbie Ming-Mendoza will mail 109,000 applications later this month. In a regular presidential election, around 10,000 voters request mail ballots, costing the clerk’s office roughly $17,500.
This year, mailing applications to every recent voter will cost the county $27,000 up front in printing and postage. But elections offices are eligible to receive reimbursement from the federal coronavirus stimulus package “for anything that is above and beyond what is historically normal,” Ming-Mendoza said.
Costs for sanitation and safety precautions at polling places can also be reimbursed. Madison County expects to spend roughly $9,180 on hand sanitizer, sanitizer for equipment, social distancing signage, face masks, face shields, gloves and table-top shields.
St. Clair County Clerk Tom Holbrook plans to send applications to all roughly 175,000 registered voters, not just those who voted in the past few years. It will cost an additional $10,000 to send applications to those extra 25,000 voters, he said.
Mail voting expands
Illinois already made it relatively easy to vote by mail compared to some other states.
In Missouri, for instance, it was illegal to vote by mail without a valid excuse such as incarceration or absence from the voting jurisdiction on Election Day. The state passed a temporary law allowing any Missourian to vote by mail, but they still have to get their ballot notarized, the Kansas City Star reported.
But compared to states with all-mail elections such as Colorado, Illinois’ approach to Nov. 3 is nothing new. Colorado shifted to universal vote-by-mail in 2013. A voter there receives their ballot up to a month before the election, and returns it with a signature on the back of the envelope.
Republicans, including Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, have followed President Donald Trump’s lead in attacking mail voting, repeating the unfounded claim that the practice leads to fraud.
No evidence supports the existence of widespread vote-by-mail fraud, but it came into the spotlight in 2018 when a North Carolina political operative collected absentee ballots from voters then filled in votes and forged signatures before mailing them to election authorities.
GOP governors in several states, including Iowa, Florida, Ohio and West Virginia have embraced mail voting as the coronavirus pandemic increases again in the United States.
This story was originally published July 21, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
