It was a record-breaking first day of early voting for DuPage County yesterday, with 1,533 voters showing up at the polls, according to a news release from the DuPage County Clerk’s office.
That’s more than double the amount who came out for the first day of early voting for the 2020 general election – 660 – which at that time, was a record itself.
Good sign for voter turnout to come, county clerk says
DuPage County Clerk Jean Kaczmarek says this is a good sign for voter numbers going forward this year.
“While it’s too early to make predictions, it appears that DuPage County is on track to have a large turnout for this presidential election. There’s excitement in the air,” Kaczmarek said in the news release. “In 2020, the turnout was 76.55% with 491,067 ballots cast – the largest turnout in DuPage history.”
Improvements in system lead to increase in voter numbers
Kaczmarek recalled the long line of voters in the DuPage County Fairgrounds’ parking lot on that first day of voting in 2020. She credits some of the larger turnout to improvements in the system.
“We expanded our earliest voting sites from one to five. This expansion, along with state-of-the-art 100% paper ballot voting equipment has made it much easier and quicker to process voters. No one was waiting in a long line today,” said Kaczmarek.
According to the clerk’s office, DuPage County has tallied the highest voter turnout in the region in every election in recent years.
Early voting now available at 5 locations in DuPage County
Early voting is now available at five locations throughout the county, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on weekdays, and 9 a.m. to noon on Saturdays.
Those locations are:
- Addison Township Office, 401 N. Addison Rd., Addison
- Bartlett Community Center, 700 S. Bartlett Rd., Bartlett
- Downers Grove Recreation Center, 4500 Belmont Rd., Downers Grove
- DuPage County Fairgrounds, 2015 Manchester Rd., Wheaton
- Naperville Municipal Center, 400 S. Eagle St., Naperville
Starting on October 21, early voting location options in the county will expand to 24 sites for voters to choose from. Additional hours will be added as well.
Come Election Day, Nov. 5, there will be 250 polling places. DuPage County voters can vote at any of those locations.
Sample ballots and more information about voting locations can be found on the DuPage County Clerk’s website.
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