CHICAGO, IL – The Chicago Board of Elections urges voters who recently applied or received their Vote By Mail ballot to return it via Dropbox before Monday, April 3rd to be counted for Election Night, April 4th. Vote By Mail applications for the April 4th Municipal Run-Off Election close at 5:00pm this Thursday, March 30th – voters can choose to receive a ballot in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Polish, Korean, or Tagalog.
Voters can choose to return their Vote By Mail ballot at any Secure Drop Box at an Early Voting site, the Supersite at 191 N. Clark, or the Board Offices at 69 W. Washington.
The Chicago Board of Elections recently finalized the April 4th Municipal Run-Off ballot after all votes from the previous Feb 28th Election were counted and proclaimed on March 15th. All previously requested Vote By Mail ballots have now been shipped. Currently, the Board has received 198,665 applications to Vote By Mail, and 7,520 Vote By Mail ballots have been returned to the Board.
“If you can, we urge Vote By Mail voters to return their ballots back at any one of 52 Secure Dropboxes at any Early Voting site across the city by Monday, April 3rd. Returning your Vote By Mail ballot in a Dropbox ensures that the Board will pick up your ballot that evening so it can be processed and counted by Election Day, Tuesday, April 4th.” said Chairwoman Marisel Hernandez. “If you are planning on returning your ballot back through the U.S. Postal Service, we urge you to make sure that your ballot is properly postmarked by April 4th to make sure it is counted in the Run-Off Election.”
April 4th is the last day to postmark a Ballot Return Envelope if returning it by mail. All Vote By Mail ballots received through Dropbox or USPS on Election Day (April 4th) and all properly postmarked VBM ballots returning by April 18th will be processed and counted on a rolling basis after Election Night.
If a voter decides not to return a Vote By Mail ballot, the voter may submit the Vote By Mail ballot to the judges at an Early Voting site, or their assigned precinct polling place or available vote center on Election Day, and then cast a ballot in person. If the Vote By Mail ballot was lost or did not arrive, the voter may sign an affidavit and cast a ballot in person, also at any Early Voting site, or their assigned precinct polling place or available vote center on Election Day, April 4th.
Voters who still need to register to vote can still do so at any Early Voting site ahead of and on Election Day, as well as at their precinct polling place on Election Day. Voters will need to bring two forms of ID, one of those which shows their current address.
Chicago voters can visit chicagoelections.gov to access all of their voter information on the Your Voter Information page. There, voters can verify their voter registration status ahead of the election, see and print their sample ballot, view the locations of the Early Voting sites, locate their precinct polling place for Election Day, and check on the status of their Vote By Mail application.