August 18, 2020 – In order to make sure that election results do not remain undecided for days after the polls close, county clerks are asking that voters get their ballots in the mail as soon as possible. Governor Pritzker signed legislation back in June that will automatically send applications for vote-by-mail to anyone who voted in 2018. County Clerks are expecting hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional costs due to the broad expansion and predicting the majority of votes to be mailed in. Illinois’ expanded vote-by-mail opportunities, combined with concerns about COVID-19 exposure at the polling place, have the potential to delay results on Election Day because of prolonged ballot counts in close races.
