Election 2024: Early voting, mail-in ballots top 100K in McHenry County

Between the time the polls opened at 6 a.m. Tuesday through about 1 p.m., almost 37,000 McHenry County residents cast their ballots, according to McHenry County Clerk Joe Tirio.

Those voters join more than 100,000 McHenry County residents who voted early or turned in their mail ballot this election, making it among the highest turnouts of any election in county history.

Tirio said Monday after polls closed for the final day of early balloting that just over 73,000 people had voted early and about another 27,000 had returned their mail-in ballots.

Lines at some McHenry County early voting places stretched out the door Monday, and Tirio said the polling places were “very, very busy.”

Because of the large turnout, there were a couple of cases in which officials had to send replacement supplies to polling places, Tirio said.

In the 2020 election, which happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, 165,515 people out of 237,640 registered voters cast a ballot, according to the McHenry County Clerk’s results.

Just over 200,000 voters were on the rolls in the March primary election and just under 37,000 of them cast a ballot, according to the clerk’s website.

If 2020′s turnout were to hold, Tirio said Monday he would expect about 70,000 voters to show up to the polls Tuesday.

Over 80 million Americans cast an advance ballot in the 2024 election, according to the Associated Press. In Illinois, more than 1.5 million people voted early and nearly 833,000 people have returned mail ballots.