This morning, the Chicago Board of Elections met with attorneys from both campaigns for Democratic candidates for Cook County State’s Attorney and all parties agreed that ballot counting and ballot signature verification would continue today, Sunday, March 24 with poll watchers present for all steps of the process.
On Sunday, March 24, election judges will be processing and tabulating approximately 13,086 Vote By Mail ballots, which have already been reviewed for timeliness, signature verifications and voter histories. The vast majority of this total are Vote By Mail ballots that were received back via Drop Box on Election Day that have not yet been counted. Voters who returned their Vote By Mail ballot via Drop Box on Election Day will soon receive an email confirming that their vote was counted or initially rejected.
Please see below for a statement from Max Bever, Director of Public Information, Chicago Board of Elections:
“I made an error in reporting the number of Vote By Mail ballots received back on Monday, March 18 before Election Day that should have been included in the ‘received by Election Day’ numbers.
Previously, I reported that 66,399 Vote By Mail ballots were received back and scanned for signature verification by the end of Monday, March 18. I initially reported that 7,009 VBM ballots received back via USPS on Election Day, 3/19/24. This number was incorrect - I only reported on the Vote By Mail ballots received back on Election Day only.
Approximately 9,143 Vote By Mail additional ballots received back on Monday should have been included in this ‘received by Election Day’ number that would be processed and counted after Election Day, March 19.
These Vote By Mail ballots received back Monday, March 18, through Tuesday, March 19, were secured in a receiving cage at 69 W. Washington until they could be run through the Agilis scanning machine for purposes including verifying that those voters had not cast ballots during Early Voting or on Election Day, and to prepare signature specimens for verification. These ballots were inspected, processed and counted by election judges on Friday, March 22, through Saturday, March 23, and are already reflected in the unofficial results at ChicagoElections.Gov.”