A look at local election security as 600K Cook County voters have already cast ballots

CHICAGO - One week from Election Day, more than half a million voters in Cook County have either voted early in person or sent their ballots in by mail.

This year’s pace lags behind 2020 when most voters chose to vote early because of the pandemic. The early vote numbers are outpacing 2016.

A group of students at Arupe College — affiliated with Loyola — traveled to the Loop together to cast their ballots at the Supersite on Clark and Lake.

"I’m a bit of a procrastinator, so my school offered us the opportunity to vote early, and I said, ‘Why not’?" said student Jada Lucious.

At various points throughout the day, lines stretched around the block at the Loop and a handful of other early vote sites.

Around 600,000 Chicago and suburban Cook County residents have cast their ballots early. Chicago Board of Elections spokesman Max Bever says each machine tabulates the numbers at the end of the day, but they are kept secret until the polls close on Election Day.

"So they’re going to a secret server – all the voting machines are never connected to the internet – so that’s why we don’t have live voting updates in real time," Bever said. "We have to take those memory cards and we have to take those paper ballots at the end of each night and put those paper ballots under lock and key in our warehouse."

Bever says the servers and paper ballots are kept under 24/7 surveillance, and the process can be observed by poll watchers from either party. The city also has 52 mail-in drop boxes – all but one of them located inside an early voting site.

"And they’re open during early voting hours early – that ensures that they are always under watch – under surveillance or security," Bever said.

Bever says he’s confident Chicago’s drop boxes can withstand the kind of attack like the alleged attempted arson that happened at a drop box in the Pacific Northwest.

"When you take a look at our drop boxes, we follow all FBI guidance – that’s why that slit there is only the size of one ballot, you can’t get liquid or a firecracker in there, and they’re secured to the ground, and they’re also emptied at the end of each night with a chain of custody document."

Bever says there are no credible reported cases of voter fraud or non-citizens voting. Voter fraud is rare but is a class three felony and can be prosecuted by state or federal law enforcement.