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Chicago mayoral election: Mail-in votes surge with one week to go
More than 100,000 Chicago voters have already cast ballots, prompting election officials to raise their estimate of how many votes will be cast by next Tuesday, when we count them all up.
CHICAGO - More than 100,000 Chicago voters have already cast ballots, prompting election officials to raise their estimate of how many votes will be cast by next Tuesday, when we count them all up.
"The sheer amount of mail ballots that we've gotten back so far seems to indicate that we're heading towards a much better turnout for election day than we've seen in basically three decades," said Max Bever, Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
Notably, though, the unexpectedly heavy turnout is not evenly distributed across the city.
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Relatively few have so far cast ballots in majority Hispanic wards, and while some majority Black wards are seeing healthy turnout numbers, the heaviest turnout by far is coming in majority white wards downtown and along the north lakefront, as well as on the Northwest and Southwest sides.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday expressed some alarm.
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"I’m very concerned about the lack of participation, not just in this election. But you can see, really for the last few years, people are not as engaged," she said. "If you don't vote, in my view, you're giving your power away to someone else."
The election is Feb. 28. If none of the nine candidates get more than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff election with the top two candidates will be held April 4.